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I 






HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 



RESPECTING 



THE CHARACTER 



OF 



EDWARD HYDE, EARL OF CLARENDON, 

LORD CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. 



BY THE 



HON. GEORGE AGAR ELLIS. 



Ornne animi vitium tanto conspectius in se 
Crimen habet, quanto major, qui peccat, habetur. 

Juvenal. 



LONDON : 

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 



MDCCCXXVII. 






{THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 
J 



IWASHINGTOS 






L H I) N : 

) i;Y C. ROWOtTH, BI LI Y A I'. D, 

! h V. I ! t 13 AH. 



m 



TO 

HENRY WELBORE, 
V I S C O U N T C L I F D E N, 

THE VARIETY AND ACCURACY OF WHOSE 

HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE 

HAVE BEEN EVER THE SUBJECT OF 

THE AUTHOR'S ADMIRATION, 

THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED 

WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF 

AFFECTIONATE REGARD 

AND 

FILIAL RESPECT. 



HISTORICAL INQUIRIES, 

SfC. 8fC. 



The observations, with which Lord 
Orford commences his " Historic Doubts 
on the Life and Reign of King Richard 
III.," explain so well the difficulties a 
writer has to encounter, who attempts to 
detect errors in generally-received points 
of history, that I cannot forbear tran- 
scribing them, as a sort of preface to the 
historical inquiries, which I am about to 
introduce to the notice of the literary 
public. " There is a kind of literary 
1 superstition," observes Lord Orford, 

B 



2 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

" which men are apt to contract from 
habit, and which makes them look on 
any attempt towards shaking their belief 
in established characters, no matter 
whether good or bad, as a sort of profa- 
nation. They are determined to adhere 
to their first impressions, and are equally 
offended at any innovation, whether the 
person, whose character is to be raised 
or depressed, were patriot or tyrant, 
saint or sinner. No indulgence is 
granted to those who would ascertain 
the truth. The more testimonies on 
either side have been multiplied, the 
stronger is the conviction ; though it 
generally happens that the original evi- 
dence is wondrous slender, and that the 
number of writers have but copied one 
another ; or, what is worse, have only 
added to the original, without any new 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. *5 

authority. Attachment so groundless 
is not to be regarded; and in mere 
matters of curiosity, it were ridiculous 
to pay any deference to it. If time 
brings new materials to light, if facts 
and dates confute historians, what does 
it signify that we have been two or three 
hundred years under an error? Does 
antiquity consecrate darkness ? Does a 
lie become venerable from its age ?" a 

The difference between the task Lord 
Orford undertook, and the one which I 
am at present commencing, consists in 
this, that his discoveries all tended to 
show the individual, who was the sub- 
ject of his inquiries, in a more favourable 
light ; while the remarks and extracts 
which I shall have to bring forward, are 

a Works of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, 
vol. ii. 

b2 



4 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

of a nature to detract from the supposed 
merits of the conspicuous person treated 
of. Lord Orford's was doubtless the 
more agreeable labour of the two ; but 
both, in my opinion, contribute equally 
to historical justice and accuracy. 

Perhaps these sort of researches into 
the characters of historical personages 
are the most impartial that can be 
entered into, because personal feelings 
are out of the question. Nothing is to 
be hoped or feared from the dead ; and 
with regard to the dead who died a 
century and a half ago, there cannot 
even be the slight bias of partiality for 
or against them, which may sometimes 
exist in more modern cases, from the 
circumstance of our having been ac- 
quainted with persons who had been 
formerly the friends or the opponents 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. O 

of the individuals in question in their 
journey through life. Nor are such 
researches, besides being both curious 
and interesting, without their import- 
ance; conferring as they sometimes do a 
tardy reward upon merit oppressed by 
calumny, while, on the other hand, they 
occasionally reduce to their proper level 
characters which, either by the party 
writers of their own day, or by some 
adventitious circumstances, have been 
unfairly exalted. 

I would wish here only further to 
observe, that these preparatory remarks 
upon historical researches are made in 
a general way, as explanatory of the 
motives and uses of such things. Every 
individual case of inquiry must, I am 
well aware, stand or fall by its own 
merits. 



() HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

I am certainly not vain enough to 
imagine that I am about to make disco- 
veries — all that I lay claim to is, the 
comparing and analysing of evidence, - 
and then drawing from it the conclusions 
which it may fairly seem to warrant. 
As this is my object, I shall generally 
prefer giving extracts of the authors 
referred to, and only troubling the reader 
with so much of my own composition as 
is necessary to connect the various au- 
thorities into one continued narrative. 

There is no character to which history 
has been more indulgent than to that of 
Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, b Lord 

b Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, Lord Chan- 
cellor of England, was the third son of Henry Hyde, 
and was born at Dinton, in Wiltshire, on the 18th of 
February, 1608. He was descended from a small, 
but ancient gentleman's family of Cheshire. In 1622 
he was sent to Oxford, and entered of Magdalen 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 7 

Chancellor of England. Annalists and 
writers of memoirs, following one an- 



Hall. In 1625 he became B. A. After which, fail- 
ing of a Fellowship of Exeter College, he entered of 
the Middle Temple, and commenced the study of the 
law. In the Parliament which commenced April 
10th, 1640, he was chosen Member for Wootton 
Basset ; — and in the Long Parliament, which com- 
menced November 3d of that same year, for Saltash. 
He distinguished himself as a frequent and able 
speaker, and soon espoused the cause of the King 
very warmly. In 1642, having withdrawn with the 
King to York, he was knighted, made a Privy Coun- 
cillor, and Chancellor of the Exchequer. — In 1643, 
he sat in the Parliament assembled by Charles at 
Oxford. — In 1644, he was one of the King's Com- 
missioners at Uxbridge. — The same year he accom- 
panied Charles II. into the West. — In 1645, the 
King's affairs becoming desperate, he fled with 
Charles II. to Scilly, and from thence to Jersey, 
where he continued till May, 1648 — and employed 
himself in writing his celebrated History of the 
Rebellion. — In 1648, he went to the continent and 
joined the new King, by whom he was continued in 
his post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and shortly 
afterwards sent Ambassador to Spain. — In 1657, he 
was made Lord Chancellor. — Upon the Restoration in 



8 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

other implicitly, have described him as 
the greatest, the most honest, and the 

1660, he was chosen Chancellor of the University of 
Oxford — the same year he was created Baron Hyde 
of Hindon, in Wiltshire — and in 1661, Viscount 
Cornbury, of Cornbury in Oxfordshire — and Earl 
of Clarendon, of Clarendon in Wiltshire. — For some 
years his power was almost unlimited. In 1663, 
George Digby, Earl of Bristol, impeached him of 
high treason in the House of Lords, but the charge 
came to nothing, — In 1665, his favour with the King 
began to decline. — In August, 1667, the seals were 
taken from him ; and in November of the same 
year he was impeached by the House of Commons, 
to avoid the consequences of which he, in the follow- 
ing month, fled to France. — Immediately after his 
departure an Act of banishment was passed against 
him. — He first resided in Normandy — afterw r ards at 
Montpelier, and at Moulins — and finally at Rouen, 
where he died December 9th, 1673, worn out by 
disease and vexation. — He was twice married, first, 
in 1628, to Anne, daughter of Sir George AylifFe, 
who died without issue in 1629 ; — and secondly, in 
1632, to Frances, daughter and heiress of Sir Tho- 
mas Aylesbury, Bart., by whom he had four sons 
and two daughters. The eldest daughter was the 
well-known Anne Hyde, married to James, Duke of 
York, afterwards James II. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 9 

most ill-used of ministers. Hume of 
course praises him : Macdiarmid, taking 
principally as an authority the Chancel- 
lor s Memoirs of Himself, eulogizes his 
integrity : and even the caustic Burnet 
extols him to the skies. Public opinion 
has naturally gone along with the testi- 
mony of history ; and we have been all 
taught from our childhood upwards to 
revere " the Chancellor of human nature" 
as one of the brightest ornaments that 
dignify our annals. For myself I can 
truly say that this was for many years 
my case, and it was only by degrees, as 
I read on, more particularly since the 
publication of the Evelyn and Pepys' 
Papers, and Lord Dartmouth's Notes 
upon Burnet's History, that I began to 
think I might have been wrong in the 
estimate I had formed of his character. 
There is no doubt that Clarendon was 



10 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

a better man than the Shaftesburys, c 

c Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftes- 
bury, was the son of Sir John Cooper, of Rockborn 
in Hampshire, by the heiress of Sir Anthony Ashley, 
of Wimborn St. Giles's in the county of Dorset, and 
was born July 22d, 1621. — He was early distin- 
guished by his talents and his want of principle ; 
and having alternately served and betrayed all sides 
during the civil wars and after the Restoration, he 
was finally, in 1 672, created Earl of Shaftesbury, and 
raised to the office of Lord Chancellor. He was 
compelled the following year to resign the Seals ; 
and was subsequently, for a short time, made Presi- 
dent of the Council. — In 1681, he was indicted for 
high treason, but the grand jury ignored the bill. — 
In 1682, having made attempts to excite seditions in 
the city, and fearing the consequences, he fled to 
Amsterdam, where he died January 22d, 1683, in 
the sixty-second year of his age. — He was the prin- 
cipal adviser in 1672, being then Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, of the disgraceful measure of shutting 
up the Exchequer. He perhaps had the pre-emi- 
nence of talent over his contemporaries — he certainly 
had that of wickedness — though they were most of 
them no mean proficients in crime. — Horace Walpole 
says of him, that " he canted tyranny under Crom- 
well, practised it under Charles II., and disgraced 
the cause of liberty, by being the busiest instrument 
for it, when every other party had rejected him." 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 11 

the Buckinghams, d the Danbys/ the 
Arlingtons/ and all the tribe of dissolute 



d George Villiers, second duke of Buckingham of 
that name, was the eldest son of the minion of James 
and the favourite of Charles, and was born at Wal- 
lingford House (now the Admiralty) January 30th, 
1627. His mother was Catherine Manners, daughter 
of Francis, sixth Earl of Rutland. He attended 
Charles II. at the battle of Worcester in 1651, and 
afterwards joined him on the continent, upon which 
occasion the King gave him the Garter. His vast 
estates, which had come to the Villiers family from 
the Rutlands, had been confiscated and granted to 
Thomas Lord Fairfax ; but, in 1657, he curiously 
enough again became the possessor of them by a mar- 
riage with Mary, the daughter and heiress of that 
lord. At the Restoration he was made a Lord of the 
King's Bed Chamber — a Privy Councillor — Lord- 
Lieutenant of Yorkshire — and Master of the Horse. 
In his court life he passed through many vicissitudes 
— filled many offices — was a principal actor in various 
seditions and disgraceful adventures — instigated 
Blood in his attempt to murder the Duke of Ormonde 
— evaded in the most cowardly manner a duel with 
his son, Lord Ossory — and finally, towards the end 
of the reign of Charles II., retired from court to his 



1 2 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

men and profligate ministers who fol- 
lowed him, and who succeeded in ren- 

seat of Helmsley* in Yorkshire. He died April 
lGth, 1688, at a tenant's house at Kirby Moorside, 
having caught cold by sitting on the ground after fox 
hunting. " As he had lived a profligate, he died a 
beggar ; and as he had raised no friend in his life 
he found none to lament him after his death. "f — 
Butler, the author of Hudibras, says of him, " the 
Duke of Bucks is one that has studied the whole 
body of vice." — " The portrait of this duke," observes 
Walpole, " has been drawn by four masterly hands : 
Burnet has hewn it out with his rough chissel ; Count 
Hamilton touches it with that slight delicacy that 
finishes while it seems but to sketch ; Dryden catched 
the living likeness ; Pope completed the historical 
resemblance." 

e Sir Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby, and after- 
wards Duke of Leeds, was great-grandson of Edward 
Osborne, an apprentice to a cloth-worker in the reign 

* Now belonging to the Duncombes, and called Duncombe 
Park ; whose acquisition of it is immortalized by Pope in the 

well-known lines, 

" While Helmsley, once proud Buckingham's delight, 
Slides to a Scrivener and a city Knight.'* 

t Reed, Biog. Dram. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 13 

dering the reign of Charles II. the most 
disgraceful period of English history. 

of Henry VIII., who first saved from drowning, and 
then, as a reward for so doing, married his master's 
daughter; for an account of this anecdote, see Pennant's 
London. " Sir Thomas Osborne was," says Burnet, "a 
gentleman of Yorkshire, whose estate was much sunk. 
He was a very plausible speaker, but too copious, and 
could not easily make an end of his discourse. He 
gave himself great liberties in discourse, and did not 
seem to have any regard to truth, or so much as to 
the appearances of it ; and was an implacable enemy." 
To this must be added, that he appears to have been 
one of the most corrupt men that ever lived, — and so 
exactly suited his master Charles in this particular, 
that he was more in his confidence than any of his 
ministers had ever been. He was " one of those 
secondary characters who, having been first minister, 
submitted afterwards to act a subordinate part in an 
administration."* — His only good public act, with 
which we are acquainted, was his hearty endeavour 
to bring about the Revolution — of which he lived to 
declare publicly in the House of Lords, he repented. 
He was made Treasurer of the Navy in 1671 ; and, 
on the fall of Thomas Lord Clifford in 1673, Lord 
High Treasurer. — The same year he was made 

* Walpole. 



14 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

There is no doubt that he was more re- 
ligious, more decent, and more estimable 

Baron Osborne, of Kiveton, and Viscount Latimer, 
also Viscount Dumblaine, in Scotland — Earl of 
Danby, in 1674— Knight of the Garter, 1G77. On 
the accession of King William he was made Presi- 
dent of the Council, and Lord Lieutenant of the 
West Riding of Yorkshire. In 1689, he was created 
Marquis of Carmarthen, and in 1694, Duke of 
Leeds. He died in 1712, at the age of eighty, at 
Easton Neston in Northamptonshire, the seat of 
his grandson, Thomas, second Lord Lempster. 

f Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington, was born in 
1618. He was descended from a little gentleman's 
family at Harlington in Middlesex. In the begin- 
ning of the civil war he was under secretary to 
George Lord Digby, secretary of state. He fought 
on the royal side, and received several severe wounds ; 
among others, a cut over his nose, which obliged 
him always to wear a black patch across it. He 
followed Charles II. to the continent, and was made 
secretary to the Duke of York. In 1658 he was 
knighted and sent ambassador to Spain — at the Re- 
storation he was made Keeper of the Privy Purse — 
and in 1662, Secretary of State, in the room of Sir 
Edward Nicholas. In 1664 he was created Lord 
Arlington, which circumstance is thus alluded to by 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 15 

than these men ; but he may have been 
all this, and yet by no means the perfect 

Clarendon : " Because he had no mind to retain his 
own name, which was no good one, his first warrant 
was to be created Cheney, which was an ancient ba- 
rony expired, and to which family he had not the 
least relation ; and for some days, upon the signing 
of the warrant, he was called Lord Cheney, until a 
gentleman of the best quality in Bucks, who, though 
he had no title to the barony, was yet of the same 
family, and inherited most part of the estate, which 
was very considerable, and was married to a daugh- 
ter of the Duke of Newcastle, heard of it, and made 
haste to stop it. The patent being not yet prepared, 
he was contented to take the title of a little farm 
that had belonged to his father, and was sold by 
him, and now in the possession of another private 
person; and so was created Lord Arlington, the 
proper and true name of the place being Harlington, 
a little village between London and Uxbridge."* 
In 1670, he was one of the famous Cabal, composed 
of Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, and 
Lauderdale, and, as one of them, received large bribes 
from France. He also concurred in the measure 
of shutting up the Exchequer. In 1672, he was 
created Viscount Thetford and Earl of Arlington 

* Clarendon's Life. 



1G HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

person he is generally represented to be. 
I am not certain that his being so much 

(with remainder to his only daughter, afterwards 
married to Henry Fitz-Roy, first Duke of Grafton, 
and her heirs general). In 1673, he was impeached 
by the House of Commons for favouring Popery, for 
corruption, and for betraying the country ; but with- 
out effect : for in the following year he was made 
Lord Chamberlain, which office he retained till his 
death, in 1685, though his favour had much dimi- 
nished at Court from the time of the Earl of 
Danby's rise. Burnet says, " He was a proud and 
insolent man," — in allusion to which the Duke of 
Ormonde one day observed, " that Lord Arlington 
was as arrogant as if he had been born with a blue 
ribbon about his neck, but that he ought to re- 
member, that Harry Bennet was once a very little 
companion." " He was little calculated for bold 
measures, on account of his natural timidity ; and 
that defect created an opinion of his moderation 
that was ascribed to virtue. His facility to adopt 
new measures was forgotten in his readiness to ac- 
knowledge the errors of the old. The deficiency of 
his integrity was forgiven in the decency of his dis- 
honesty. Too weak not to be superstitious, yet pos- 
sessing too much sense to own his adherence to the 
Church of Rome, he lived a Protestant in his out- 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 17 

better than those who came after him 
ought not to make us more sceptical 
respecting his extreme excellence; for 
there can be no doubt that this circum- 
stance has tended to render all men 
more favourably disposed towards him 
than they would otherwise have been : 
that the darkness of the other side of 
the picture has helped to throw his cha- 
racter and merits into a greater blaze of 
light. It is also probable, that the re- 
verses and misfortunes which he met 

• 

with at the latter part of his life, have, 

ward profession, but he died a Catholic. Timidity 
was the chief characteristic of his mind ; and that 
being known, he was even commanded by cowards. 
He was the man of the least genius of the party ; 
but lie had the most experience in that slow and 
cautious current of business, which, perhaps, suits 
affairs of state better than the violent exertions of 
men of great parts. "* 

* Macpherson. 



18 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

by exciting pity and commiseration, 
rendered posterity less impartial judges 
of his personal qualities, than it was 
their bounden duty to be. To this we 
must add, that he was a man of very 
great abilities, and a supporter of legiti- 
macy and prerogative — the former of 
which circumstances has ensured a pre- 
disposition to favour in all mankind, and 
the latter, in a great portion of the 
higher classes. 

To his talents all must, indeed, be 
willing to bow with deference. The 
eternal monument which he has be- 
queathed to us in his most able, though 
party history, can leave no doubt upon 
the mind of any man of his vast and 
extraordinary powers. But the justness 
of the high reputation he has acquired 
on the score of virtue and probity is a 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 19 

very different question. I own I am 
inclined to think he was, as a minister, 
by no means free from the charge, or at 
least from a heavy suspicion, of rapacity 
and corruption, as well as of cruelty 
and tyranny. How far my opinion is 
grounded in truth, it will be for the 
reader to judge, when he has read my 
arguments and weighed my authorities, 
to which I shall now without further 
preface proceed. 

First, with regard to the disposition to 
rapacious and corrupt practices in the 
Chancellor, we find the following testi- 
monies. 

I shall commence with that of Pepys, g 

g Samuel Pepys, who has latterly become so well 
known by the publication of his very curious Diary, 
was born February 23, 1632. He was educated at St. 
Paul's School, and at Magdalen College, Cambridge, 

c 2 



20 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

which I consider a very important one, 
inasmuch as it consists of extracts from 
his Diary, a work which he certainly 
never imagined would be read or under- 
stood by any one but himself, as he 



to which Institution he subsequently bequeathed his 
valuable collections of books and prints. Having 
attached himself early in life to the fortunes of his 
cousin, Edward Montagu, afterwards created Earl of 
Sandwich, he was, by his interest, on the Restora- 
tion, made Clerk of the Acts of the Navy. In 1664, 
he became Secretary to the Commissioners for ma- 
naging the affairs of Tangier, and Surveyor-General 
of the Victualling department. In 1673, he became 
a Member of the House of Commons, and in the 
same year was made Secretary of the Admiralty, 
when that department of the Government was new 
modelled and placed under the peculiar direction of 
the King. In 10 79, he was sent to the Tower, on 
the accusation of one Scott, for betraying the secrets 
of the Navy to the French government, and for being 
a Roman Catholic, neither of which circumstances 
appear to have been founded in fact. From 1680 to 
1683 Pepys was out of office. In 1683, he accom- 
panied Lord Dartmouth in the expedition for the 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 21 

wrote it in a cipher of his own inven- 
tion. It is, therefore, not to be classed 
with so many works of the same kind, 
which have been written, if not avow- 
edly, at least secretly, with the inten- 
tion of publication, and to give the world 

destruction of Tangier, and on his return in 1684, 
he was again made Secretary of the Navy, which 
situation he retained till the abdication of James II. 
In 1684 and 1685 he was President of the Royal 
Society. From the Revolution to the time of his 
death, which occurred May the 26th, 1703, he con- 
tinued in retirement, and occupied himself in literary 
pursuits. He appears to have possessed considerable 
acquirements, and great knowledge of business ; and 
is said to have done more than any one in improving 
the state of the navy. His honesty, also, and anxiety 
to serve the Public well, are evident from his Diary, 
as well as from other testimonies. That he was a 
man of frivolous habits and somewhat loose morals 
must be conceded; nor can we deny or justify the 
servility he invariably manifested to his superiors ; 
which, however, was perhaps, in a great measure, to 
be ascribed to the customs and manners of the age he 
lived in. 



22 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

a favourable opinion of the writer's views 
or talents. The Diary of Pepys was 
the intimate communion of a man with 
himself, in which he relates his own feel- 
ings and convictions without disguise of 
any kind, — and, therefore, the testimony 
contained in it is peculiarly valuable, 
and deserving of credit. It should be 
added, that Pepys was himself, though 
in some points a frivolous character, an 
excellent man of business, of an acute 
mind, and, for the age he lived in, of 
great honesty. 

In the first quotation I shall make 
from Pepys, he records the opinion of 
Evelyn, h himself a man whose judg- 



b John Evelyn, the well-known author of Sylva, 
and of his own Diary, was descended from a good and 
ancient gentleman's family in Surrey. He was born 
October the 31st, 1620, and died February the 27th, 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 23 

ment should carry considerable weight 
— especially in the present case, as he 

170G, at the age of eighty-five. The offices he held 
at different times were as follows : — In 1662, he was 
a Commissioner for repairing the buildings, ways, 
and streets, and regulating hackney-coaches in Lon- 
don. The same year he sat as a Commissioner on an 
inquiry into the conduct of the Lord-Mayor concern- 
ing Sir Thomas Gresham's charities. In 1664, he 
was a Commissioner for regulating the Mint, and 
also, for the care of the sick and wounded in the 
Dutch war. He was one of the Commissioners for 
the repair of St. Paul's Cathedral, shortly before it 
was burnt in 1666. In 1666, he was in a Com- 
mission for regulating the farming and making of 
Saltpetre. In 1671, he was made a Commissioner of 
Plantations, to which, in 1672, the Council of Trade 
was added. In 1685, he was one of the Commis- 
sioners of the Privy Seal, and in 1695 he was a 
Commissioner for the building of Greenwich Hos- 
pital. In 1696, he laid the first stone of that edifice 
— and was made the Treasurer of the Establishment. 
He was a man of considerable talents, much know- 
ledge, and great taste ; and in private life appears to 
have been religious, highly respectable, (a rare virtue 
in those times,) and much beloved. In his public 
capacity he was, probably, rather what is called a 



24 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

was certainly personally friendly to the 
Chancellor. 

" By the way he (Evelyn) tells me, 
that of all the great men of England, 
there is none that endeavours more to 
raise those that he takes into favour 
than my Lord Arlington; and that on 
that score he is much more to be made 
one's patron than my Lord Chancellor, 
who never did nor will do any thing, but 
for money." i 

In confirmation of this passage, it may 
be worth while to give one from Eve- 
lyn's own Diary, which, though not so 



time-server — always the humble servant of those in 
power — and always going to Court, even when he 
most disapproved of the scenes he witnessed there. 
Still, however, the numerous amiable and praise- 
worthy points in his character will always far out- 
weigh its few occasional blemishes. 
| Pepys's Diary, vol. ii. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 25 

plain-spoken as his conversation with 
Pepys, evidently points at the same 
thing. 

" Visited the Lord Chancellor, to whom 
his Majesty had sent for the Seales a 
few days before ; I found him in his 
bed-chamber, very sad. The Parlia- 
ment had accused him, and he had ene- 
mies at court, especially the buffoons 
and ladys of pleasure, because he 
thwarted them, and stood in their way ; 
I could name some of the chiefe. The 
truth is, he made few friends during his 
grandeur among the royal sufferers, but 
advanced the old rebels} He was, how- 

k Had Clarendon been the pure and virtuous mi- 
nister, which some think him, would the Country 
have followed the example of the Court, in deserting 
him; and would the former have allowed the latter 
to persecute him so relentlessly as they did, and even 
encouraged them in it ? I own I think not. 



20 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

ever, though no considerable lawyer, 
one who kept up the forme and sub- 
stance of things in the nation with more 
solemnity than some would have had. 
He was my particular kind friend on all 
occasions." 1 

Here we find Evelyn acknowledging 
his friendship for Lord Clarendon, and 
yet blaming his conduct. It should be 
observed, that it is evident from the 
Chancellor's writings, that no one ever 
hated " the old rebels," as they are here 
called, more than he did. Why, then, 
did he advance them ? — the answer ap- 
pears to me, I own, (supported as it is 
by other evidence,) to be obvious ; they 
were rich, and the " royal sufferers," 
who were just returned from their ba- 
nishment, were poor. The first could 

1 Evelyn's Diary, vol. i. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 27 

pay for their places, the latter could 
not. 

In support of the fact of the Chan- 
cellor's having favoured " the old re- 
bels," and of the opinion just expressed 
as to his motive for such conduct, I 
shall now proceed to extract, from the 
Oxford Edition of Burnet's History of 
his Own Times," a note of Lord Dart- 
mouth's. I will only preface it by ob- 
serving, that Lord Dartmouth 111 was a 
Tory, and, therefore, should naturally 
have been disposed to be favourable to 
Clarendon — and that he was, in his own 
person, in the words of a most able con- 

m William Legge, second Lord and first Earl of 
Dartmouth, was born October the 14th, 1672. He 
was appointed Secretary of State in 1710, and in the 
following year was created Earl of Dartmouth and 
Viscount Lewisham. He died December the 15th, 
1750. 



28 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

temporary, " a man of letters, full of 
good sense, good nature and honour, of 
strict virtue and regularity in his life." 11 

" The Earl of Clarendon, upon the 
Restoration, made it his business to de- 
press every body's merits to advance his 
own, and (the King having gratified his 
vanity with high titles) found it necessary 
towards making a fortune in proportion, 
to apply himself to other means than 
what the Crown could afford ; (though 
he had as much as the King could well 
grant :) and the people who had suffered 
most in the civil war were in no condi- 
tion to purchase his favour. He there- 
fore undertook the protection of those 
who had plundered and sequestered the 
others, which he very artfully contrived, 
by making the King believe it was ne- 

n Swift, in the Examiner. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 29 

cessary for his own ease and quiet to 
make his enemies his friends ; upon 
which he brought in most of those who 
had been the main instruments and pro- 
moters of the late troubles, who were 
not wanting in their acknowledgements 
in the manner he expected, which pro- 
duced the great house in the Piccadille, 
furnished chiefly with Cavaliers' goods, 
brought thither for peace-offerings, which 
the right owners durst not claim when 
they were in his possession. In my 
own remembrance Earl Paulett was an 
humble petitioner to his sons, p for leave 
to take a copy of his grandfather and 
grandmother's pictures (whole lengths, 
drawn by Vandike) that had been plun- 

° For the Account of Clarendon House, see p. 102. 
p Henry Earl of Clarendon, and Laurence Earl 
of Rochester. 



30 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

dered from Hinton St. George ; q which 
was obtained with great difficulty, be- 
cause it was thought that copies might 
lessen the value of the originals. And 
whoever had a mind to see what great 
families had been plundered during the 
civil war, might find some remains either 
at Clarendon House, or at Cornbury. ,5r s 
The first part of the foregoing note so 
completely explains the previous extract 
from Evelyn, and is at the same time so 
conclusive upon the two points, first, of 
the Chancellor's having advanced " the 
old rebels," and secondly, of the reason 

q The seat of the Lords Paulett, in Somersetshire. 

r The Chancellor's country-house, in Oxfordshire, 
on the borders of Wychwood Forest. Both Wych- 
wood Forest and Cornbury Park were grants to the 
Chancellor from Charles II. 

fc Burnet's History of his Own Times, Oxford Edi- 
tion, vol. i. 






RESPECTING CLARENDON. 31 

why he did so, that I shall add nothing 
to such clear and explicit testimony. 

But the latter part of the note con- 
tains, as will have been observed, a 
separate charge — namely, of his having 
received as bribes from " the old rebels" 
the furniture and pictures which had 
been plundered from the houses of 
" the Royal Sufferers." This charge, as 
far as documentary evidence goes, rests 
entirely, at least as far as I have been 
able to discover, upon the authority of 
Lord Dartmouth. It is, however, as I 
shall now proceed to relate, curiously 
confirmed by circumstantial evidence. 

The furniture which the Chancellor, 
according to Lord Dartmouth, received, 
has of course, in the lapse of one hun- 
dred and fifty years, disappeared. Not 
so the pictures ; which can be traced 



32 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

accurately down to the present day, and 
afford in my opinion in themselves, in 
conjunction with Lord Dartmouth's 
statement, a very important evidence of 
the probability at least of Clarendon's 
rapacious inclinations. 

The numerous and very valuable col- 
lection of portraits (for they are all por- 
traits,) which belonged to the Lord Chan- 
cellor Clarendon, descended to his eldest 
son Henry, second Earl of Clarendon ;* 

1 Henry Hyde, second Earl of Clarendon, was the 
eldest son of the Chancellor, and succeeded him in 
his honours and estates. He died October 22d, 
1709, aged seventy, having been Chamberlain to the 
Queen during the reign of Charles ; and Privy Seal 
and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland during that of James. 
His Diary, which has been published, shows the 
infinite littleness and narrowness of his understanding. 
Burnet says of him, ;c that he was a sincere, a friendly, 
and a good-natured man, but of a bad temper ; that 
he never paid his debts — and was very tedious in his 
conversation." 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 33 

and from him to his only son Edward/ 
third Earl of Clarendon ; who dying 
without issue male, his succession and 
titles devolved upon his cousin Henry x 
Earl of Rochester, eldest son of Lau- 
rence Earl of Rochester/ who was the 
second son of the Chancellor. Henry 

u Edward Hyde, third Earl of Clarendon, the 
only son of Henry, second Earl of Clarendon, was a 
man of not much note. He was, at different periods 
of his life, Master of the Horse to Prince George of 
Denmark. Governor of New York in America, and 
Envoy to the Court of Hanover. He died March 
31st, 1723. 

x Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon and Rochester, 
succeeded his father in the earldom of Rochester in 
1711, and his cousin in that of Clarendon in 1723. 
He was possessed of the lucrative office of Joint 
Vice -Treasurer of Ireland. As, upon his death, in 
1753, he left no male issue, his titles became extinct. 

y Laurence Hyde, first Earl of Rochester, was the 
second son of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon. He 
held the following offices : Master of the Robes to 
Charles II. — one of the Plenipotentiaries for con- 
cluding the Treaty of Nimeguen. — President of the 

D 



34 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

Earl of Clarendon and Rochester, had 
one son and three daughters. The son, 
Henry Viscount Cornbury, 2 died during 

Council, and Lord Treasurer, in the reign of James II. 
— Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and President of the 
Council, in the reign of King William. — Created 
Baron Hyde of Wotton Basset and Viscount Hyde of 
Ke nil worth in 1681, and Earl of Rochester, and a 
Knight of the Garter, in 1682. He died in 1711. 
Burnet observes of him, " he is a man of far greater 
parts than his brother. He has a very good pen, 
but speaks not gracefully. When he came into 
business, and rose to high posts, he grew violent and 
insolent, but was thought an incorrupt man. He has 
high notions of government, and thinks it must be 
maintained w T ith great severity." Lord Dartmouth 
says, " he never knew a man who was so soon put 
into a passion, and that was so long before he could 
bring himself out of it, in which he would say things 
that were never forgot by any body but himself; 
therefore, he had always more enemies than he 
thought; though he had as many professedly so as 
any man of his time." 

z Henry Hyde, Viscount Cornbury, only son of 
Henry Earl of Clarendon and Rochester, was a man 
of some talent and great amiability of character. 
Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, in his poems, calls 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 35 

his father's life. The eldest daughter 



him " Gentle Cornbury" — Swift says, " he is a 
young nobleman of learning and morals" — and Pope 
pays him the high compliment of advising others to 
" disdain whatever Cornbury disdained." Lord 
Or ford thus draws his character : " He was upright, 
calm, steady ; his virtues were of the gentlest com- 
plexion, yet of the firmest texture ; vice could not 
bend him, nor party warp him ; even his own talents 
could not mislead him. Though a master of elo- 
quence, he preferred justice, and the love of his 
country to all the applause, which the violence of the 
times in which he lived was so prodigal of bestowing 
on orators who distinguish themselves in any faction ; 
but the tinsel of popularity and the intrinsic of cor- 
ruption were equally his contempt. He spoke, nor 
wrote, nor acted, for fame." He was the author of 
several pamphlets published without his name — of 
some tragedies still in manuscript — of a comedy 
called " The Mistakes, or the Happy Resentment," 
printed at Strawberry Hill, in 1758 —and of an admi- 
rable " Letter to David Mallet, on the intended pub- 
lication of Lord Bolingbrokc's manuscripts." He is 
believed to have died by suicide at Paris, on the 
28th of May, 1753, though the complaisant peerages 
say that his death was occasioned by a fall from his 
horse. 

1)2 



3G HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

married William, third Earl of Essex ; a 
the second married Charles Duke of 
Queensberry and Dover ; b and the third 



a William Capel, third Earl of Essex, was the son 
of Algernon, the second Earl, and his wife, Mary 
Bentinck, daughter of the first Earl of Portland. 
He was born in 1G97, and died in 1743, having filled 
the offices of Lord of the Bed-chamber to George II., 
both before and after his accession — of Ambassador 
to the Court of Turin — and of Captain of the Yeomen 
of the Guard. He was made a Knight of the 
Thistle in 1725, and of the Garter in 1732. His first 
wife was Jane Hyde, — his second, from whom de- 
scends the present Lord Essex, was Elizabeth Russell, 
daughter of Wriothesly second Duke of Bedford. 

b Charles Douglas, Duke of Queensberry and 
Dover, was the second son of William Duke of 
Queensberry and Dover, the principal promoter and 
manager of the Union of Scotland and England. 
His eldest brother James, Earl of Drumlanrig, was 
an ideot, of whom the following anecdote is related. 
On the day when his father went to proclaim the 
Union of the two kingdoms, he was left at home ; and 
the whole household being gone to see the proces- 
sion, he got out of his apartment, and going into the 
kitchen found only a lad there, employed in turning 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 37 

died unmarried. The collection of pic- 
tures upon the extinction of the male 
Hydes was divided between Lady 
Essex's two daughters (Lady Essex 
herself being dead), and the Duchess of 
Queensberry, and they received each a 

the spit. He seized the poor boy, spitted him, and 
was found in the act of roasting him, when his father 
returned from the ceremony. The Scotch, who 
hated the Union, said it was a judgment upon the 
duke for having favoured it. Charles Douglas was 
created Earl of Solvvay in 1707, and, on the death of 
his father, succeeded to the titles of Duke of 
Queensberry and Dover. He was a Lord of the 
Bed-chamber to George I. — Vice-admiral of Scot- 
land during part of the reign of George II. — and 
afterwards Lord of the Bed-chamber to Frederick 
Prince of Wales ; and in the beginning of the late 
King's reign, he was made Keeper of the Signet in 
Scotland, and Lord Justice General. He died in 
1778, leaving no issue. 

c Lady Charlotte Hyde, youngest daughter of 
Henry Earl of Clarendon and Rochester, died 
unmarried in 1740. According to a portrait of her, 
which is preserved at Lord Essex's seat at Cassis- 
bury, she must have been very beautiful — much more 
so than either of her sisters. 



38 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

third portion. The eldest of the two 
daughters and co-heiresses of Lady- 
Essex was married to the Honourable 
Thomas Villiers/ (second son of Wil- 
liam, second Earl of Jersey,) who was 
created Earl of Clarendon, and whose 
sons were the late and present earls of 
that name. The second married Admiral 
the Honourable John Forbes, e (second 

d The Honourable Thomas Villiers was long Minister 
Plenipotentiary from Great Britain to the Court of 
Prussia. He was created Baron Hyde of Hindon in 
1756 — upon which occasion the Duchess of Queens- 
berry is reported to have said, " if the Coxcomb is 
to be powdered, why must it be with the honours of 
my ancestors ?" — He was made Earl of Clarendon in 
1776, and a Count of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1782, 
and died December 11th, 1787. He married Char- 
lotte Capel, eldest daughter of William, third Earl 
of Essex, March 30th, 1752. 

e Admiral the Honourable John Forbes was 
Admiral of the Fleet, and General of the Marines. 
He married August 26th, 1758, Mary Capel, second 
daughter of William third Earl of Essex, and died 
March 10th, 1796. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 39 

son of George, third Earl of Granard,) 
and had issue two daughters ; the eldest 
married to William Lord Maryborough 
— the second to the present Earl of 
Clarendon. These two co-heiress gave 
up to the late Lord Clarendon their por- 
tion of the collection ; and the whole of 
the two thirds, which formed the in- 
heritance of the daughters of Lady- 
Essex, are consequently now united at 
the Grove, the seat of Lord Clarendon, 
in Hertfordshire. 

The Duchess of QueensberryV two 

f Catherine Hyde, Duchess of Queensberry, was 
the second daughter of Henry Earl of Clarendon 
ai/. 1 . Rochester, and was married in 1719 to Charles 
Duke of Queensberry and Dover. Her talents, her 
beauty, her eccentricities, are too well known to 
be here dwelt upon. She was the affectionate friend 
and patroness of Gay, and has been celebrated in 
verse by him, by Pope, by Swift, by Walpole, and 
by Whitehead. When she was forbid the court of 



40 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

sons dying during the life-time of their 
father, she bequeathed her third of the 

George II., in consequence of her having warmly 
espoused the cause of her protege Gay, whose con- 
tinuation of the Beggar's Opera, called " Polly," liad 
been forbid by the Lord Chamberlain (the Duke of 
Grafton) to be acted, she sent the following indignant 
message to the King. — " The Duchess of Queens- 
berry is surprized and well pleased that the King 
hath given her so agreeable a command as to stay 
away from court, where she never came for diversion, 
but to bestow a great civility upon the King and 
Queen. She hopes by such an unprecedented order 
as this, that the King will see as few as he wishes at 
his court; particularly such as dare to think or speak 
truth. I dare not do otherwise ; and ought not, nor 
could have imagined, that it would not have been the 
very highest compliment I could possibly pay the 
King, to endeavour to support Truth and Innocence 
in his House. 

C. QUEENSBERRY. 

Particularly when the King and Queen had both told 
me, that they had not read Mr. Gay's play ; I have 
certainly done right, then, to stand by my own word, 
rather than His Grace of Grafton's, who hath neither 
made use of Truth, Judgment, or Honour, through 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 41 

Clarendon portraits to the Earl of March, 5 
who succeeded her husband as Duke of 
Queensberry, and was the last Duke of 
that name. He, upon his decease, left 

this whole affair, either for himself or his friends." 
The Duchess of Queensberry died at great old age 
in 1777. Her two sons died during the life-time of 
their parents. The eldest of the two, called Henry 
Marquis of Drumlanrig, shot himself at an inn at 
Doncaster, coming up with his father from Scotland, 
October 19th, 1754. The second, called Charles 
Marquis of Drumlanrig, died at Lisbon, whither he 
had gone for the recovery of his health, in October, 
17J6. 

g William Douglas, fourth Duke of Queensberry, 
was descended from William Douglas, second son of 
William, first Duke of Queensberry, who was created 
Earl of March. He became Duke of Queensberry 
in 1778, upon the demise of his cousin Charles 
Duke of Queensberry and Dover. He died Decem- 
ber 23d, 1810, aged eighty-six, when his titles and 
estates were variously divided between the Duke of 
Buccleugh, Lord Douglas of Douglas, the present 
Marquis of Queensberry, and the Earl of Wemyss. 



42 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

them to the present Lord Douglas 11 of 
Douglas, in whose house of Bothwell, 
in Scotland, they at present remain. 

Nothing can, I trust and believe, be 
much more accurate than this pedigree 
of the Clarendon pictures ; and I have 
been the more anxious, even at the risk 

t 

h Archibald Douglas, created Lord Douglas of 
Douglas Castle, in 1790, still alive, is the very indi- 
vidual, the legitimacy of whose birth was contested in 
what is generally called the great Douglas cause. 
That cause was decided in his favour, mainly by the 
influence of Lord Mansfield, and he in consequence 
became possessed of all the estates of Archibald, last 
Duke of Douglas, and was held to be the legitimate 
offspring of Sir John Stewart and Lady Jane Douglas, 
his wife, sister and heiress of the said Duke of 
Douglas. Public opinion has run somewhat counter 
to that decision ; which, however, as the decision 
was final, and without appeal, is of little importance. 
Those who are anxious for information upon the sub- 
ject, are referred to the curious and able series of 
letters written by Andrew Stewart, and addressed to 
Lord Mansfield. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 43 

of being tedious, to make it so, in order 
to show thai the collection remains as it 
teas. Now every one who sees the col- 
lections of portraits at the Grove and at 
Bothwell Castle must, I think, at once 
acknowledge the probable correctness 
of Lord Dartmouth's account of the 
manner in which the Chancellor acquired 
them — for they will find that they com- 
prize the most extraordinary assemblage 
of persons of different races that can well 
be conceived — more especially the por- 
traits of the different members of almost 
all the conspicuous families on the 
Kingfs side in the civil wars. Amon? 
them are the Stanleys, the Cavendishes, 
the Villiers's, the Hamiltons, the Co- 
ventrys, &c. kc. &c. — families with 
whom the newly elevated Hydes had cer- 
tainly no connexion of blood — and who, 



44 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

or their descendants at the Restoration, 
undoubtedly bore no kindly feeling to the 
Chancellor, and therefore were by no 
means likely to have given these, their 
household gods, to him. Besides, who 
ever gives their family portraits away to 
a stranger ? and that they were become 
in point of age, by the time of the Resto- 
ration, family portraits, is evident; as 
they are almost all painted by either 
Vandyck 1 or Cornelius Jansen, k and 

* The celebrated painter, Anthony Vandyck, was 
born at Antwerp in 1599, and died in London in 
1641. He studied painting under Henry Van Balen 
and Rubens. He painted much in England ; but, 
in consequence of being too much hurried, from 
having more commissions than he could execute, his 
pictures painted in this country are for the most 
part very inferior to those which he executed in 
Flanders, Holland, and Italy. He was knighted by 
Charles I. in 1G32. He married the daughter of the 
Honourable Patrick Ruthven, an eminent physician, 
brother of John, third Earl of Gowrie in Scotland 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 45 

therefore must have been in existence 
before the civil wars began. Neither is 
it probable that the Chancellor could 
have bought these pictures, for had they 
ever been on sale, there can be no doubt 
the families to which they originally 
belonged, would have managed to pur- 
chase them. 

In all other collections of portraits in 
England, it is for the most part easy to 
discover how each portrait came into 
the family, by tracing its relationship 
and connexions ; but here there is 

(who is said by some historians to have conspired 
treasonably against James I., together with his 
brother, Alexander Ruthven). 

k Cornelius Jansen. This eminent painter of por- 
traits was born at Amsterdam about the year 1590. 
He came to England in 1618, and continued there 
till 1618, when he returned to his own country, 
where he died in 1665. He was much patronized 
by James I., whose portrait he frequently painted. 



46 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

hardly a single instance in which such a 
connexion, even of friendship, can be 
made out. Under all these circum- 
stances of strong collateral evidence, I 
feel myself bound to say, that I fully and 
entirely believe in Lord Dartmouth's 
explanation (as indeed it is the only rea- 
sonable one that can be given) of the 
manner in which the Chancellor Cla- 
rendon became possessed of his collec- 
tion of portraits. 

I shall now return to the testimonies 
of Pepys with regard to the Chancellor's 
general reputation for rapacity, and will 
afterwards quote some passages relative 
to a particular transaction, in which 
Pepys was himself engaged with him. 

" Sept. 9th, 1665. I was forced to 
get a bed at Captain Cocke's, where I 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 47 

find Sir W. DOyly, 1 and he and Evelyn 
at supper ; and I with them full of dis- 
course of the neglect of our masters, the 
great officers of state, about all business, 
and especially that of money : having 
now some thousands prisoners kept to 
no purpose at a great charge, and no 
money provided almost for the doing of 
it. We fell to talk largely of the want 
of some persons understanding to look 
after businesses, but all goes to rack. 
1 For,' says Captain Cocke, • my Lord 
Treasurer,™ he minds his ease, and lets 

1 Sir William D'Oyly, of Shottisham, Norfolk, 
knighted, 16 12— created a Baronet, 1663— M, P. for 
Yarmouth — ob. 1677. He was Commissioner, 
with Evelyn, for the care of the sick and wounded 
Seamen and Prisoners of War. 

m Thomas Wriothesley, fourth and last Earl of 
Southampton, Lord High Treasurer of England 
from 1660 to 1667. He died May 16th, 1667. 
He left behind him the character of an incorrupt 



48 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

things go how they will : if he can have 
his £8000 per annum, and his game at 

minister : but lie had the fault of leaving the business 
of the Treasury wholly in the hands of underlings, 
and taking no charge of it himself, which Burnet 
attributes to his disgust at the King's proceedings. 
Burnet says of him, that " he was a man of great 
virtue and very good parts. He had a lively 
apprehension and a good judgment." Clarendon is 
still more flattering in his character of him, and says, 
" he was indeed a great man in all respects." Pepys 
gives the following account of his death : — " Great 
talk of the good end that my Lord Treasurer made ; 
closing his own eyes, and wetting his mouth, and 
bidding adieu with the greatest content and freedom 
in the world : and is said to die with the cleanest 
hands that ever any lord treasurer did." The same 
author tells an anecdote, upon the authority of Sir 
William Coventry, which, if true, is a decided blot 
upon the character of Southampton as a constitutional 
minister ; namely, that he advised Charles II. to get 
a fixed revenue, and so make himself independent of 
parliaments, from which step he was dissuaded by 
Clarendon. — " Sir William Coventry did tell me, 
that when the King did show himself forward for 
passing the act of indemnity, he (Lord Southampton) 
did advise the King that he would hold his hand in 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 49 

lombre, he is well. My Lord Chancel- 
lor, he minds getting of money, and nothing 
else ; and my Lord Ashley 11 will rob the 
devil and the altar, but he will get money 
if it be to be got."° 
" Oct. 13th, 1667. Met Sir H. Cholmly,* 

doing it till he had got his power restored that had 
been diminished by the late times, and his revenue 
settled in such a manner as he might depend on himself 
without resting upon parliaments, and then pass it. 
But my Lord Chancellor, who thought he could have 
the command of parliaments for ever, because for 
the King's sake they were awhile willing to grant all 
the King desired, did press for its being done ; and 
so it was, and the King from that time able to do 
nothing with the Parliament almost/' 

n Anthony Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury : 
for his character see Note at page 10. 

° Pepys's Diary, vol. i. 

p Sir Hugh Cholmly, Bart., of Whitby in York- 
shire, was one of the Commissioners, with Pepys 
and others, for managing the affairs relating to Tan- 
gier. He was also employed in constructing the 
mole at that place, and resided there in consequence 
some years. He died in 1G88. 



50 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

who walked with me, and told me most 
of the news I heard last night of the par- 
liament ; and thinks they will do all 
things very well, only they will be re- 
venged of my Lord Chancellor; and 
says, however, that he thinks there will 
be but two things proved on him ; and 
one is, that he may have said to the 
King and to others words to breed in the 
King an ill-opinion of the parliament — 
that they were factious, and that it was 
better to dissolve them : and this he 
thinks they will be able to prove ; but 
what this will amount to he knows not. 
And next, that he hath taken money for 
several bargains that have been made with 
the crown ; and did instance one that is 
already complained of: but there are so 
many more involved in it, that should 
they unravel things of this sort, every 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 51 

body almost will be more or less con- 
cerned. But these are the two great 
points which he thinks they will insist 
upon, and prove against him." q 

It will be seen by the first part of the 
foregoing extract, that the Chancellor 
had spoken to the King against the par- 
liament. That his dislike to parliaments 
was general is evident from the following 
passage, also extracted from Pepys. 

" June 25th, 1667.— Sir H. Cholmly 
tells me great news ; that this day in 
council the King hath declared, that he 
will call his parliament in thirty days : 
which is the best news I have heard a 
great while, and will, if anything, save 
the kingdom. How the King came to 
be advised to this, I know not ; but he 
tells me that it was against the Duke of 

' Pepys's Diary, vol. ii. 
E 2 



52 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

York's mind flatly, who did rather 
advise the King to raise money as he 
pleased, and against the Chancellors, who 
told the King that Queen Elizabeth did do 
all her business in 88 without calling a 
parliament, and so might he do for any 
thing he saw." r 

Andrew Marvell 3 also in his state 

7 Pepys's Diary, vol. ii. 

s Andrew Marvell was born at Hull in 1G20. 
His father was a clergyman and schoolmaster in 
that town. He was sent at the age of thirteen to 
Trinity College, Cambridge, where, cultivating assi- 
duously the good abilities he had received from 
nature, he became an excellent scholar, and, accord- 
ing to Aubrey, the best writer of Latin verses of his 
time. He was first brought into public life in the 
capacity of Assistant to Milton, who was then Latin 
Secretary to the Protector. This happened in 1 657. 
In 1660 he was chosen Member for Hull, and again 
in 1661. Aubrey says, " his native town of Hulle 
loved him so well, that they elected him for their 
representative in parliament, and gave him an honor- 
able pension to maintain him." He was the last 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 53 

poems thus describes Clarendon's horror 
of parliaments. 

" Blither than hare that hath escap'd the hounds, 
The House prorogued, the Chancellor rebounds. 
Not so decrepid iEson, hash'd and stew'd 
With magic herbs rose from the pot renew'd, 
And with fresh age felt his glad limbs unite, 
His gout (yet still he curs'd) had left him quite. 
What frosts to fruits, what arsenick to the rat, 
What to fair Denham* mortal chocolate, 
What an account to Carteret, that and more, 
A parliament is to the Chancellor ! 
So the sad tree shrinks from the morning's eye, 
But blooms all night, and shoots its branches high. 
So at the sun's recess, again returns 
The comet dread, and earth and heaven burns." u 



man who received a gratuity from his constituents. 
He seldom spoke in parliament, but had great in- 
fluence with the members of both houses ; as well on 
account of his talents, as of his great and just reputa- 
tion for integrity. He was so much consulted upon 
political subjects by Prince Rupert, that the opposite 
party were accustomed to call him " The Prince's 
Tutor." The court frequently made him very 
advantageous offers, which he invariably rejected 



« 



54 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

That these quotations induce a strong- 
suspicion that the Chancellor was by no 

with disdain. He wrote several political and con- 
troversial tracts, and a considerable number of sati- 
rical poems, of which, though the rhythm is apt to be 
rugged, the humour is considerable. They are, 
however, now but little read. Burnet calls him, 
" the liveliest droll of the age, who wrote in a bur- 
lesque strain, but with so peculiar and entertaining a 
conduct, that from the king down to the tradesman, 
his books were read with great pleas ure.' , Marvell 
died in 1678, aged fifty-seven; and the Jesuits are 
suspected of having poisoned him. Aubrey says, 
" he was in his conversation modest, and of very few 
words." To Marvell's character generally we may 
truly apply, with reference to the age he lived in, the 
words of Lord Orford, when speaking of the Chan- 
cellor Somers — " He was one of those divine men, 
who, like a chapel in a palace, remains unprofaned, 
while all the rest is tyranny, corruption, and folly." 

1 For the account of the beautiful Lady Denham, 
of her intrigue with the Duke o*f York, of her hus- 
band's jealousy, and of her subsequent death, sup- 
posed to have been caused by poison, see " Memoires 
de Grammont." 

" The Works of Andrew Marvell, Esq. vol. ii. 
Edit. 1772. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 55 



means a very constitutional minister, 
cannot be contested ; especially when 
they are supported by the sentiment ut- 
tered by him to the Earls of Glencairn v 
and Rothes/ who came to court to com- 
plain of some proceedings of the Earl of 

v William Cunningham, ninth Earl of Glencairn, 
was, says Burnet, " a grave and sober man." He 
was, notwithstanding, a member of the infamous and 
dissolute ministry, who, headed by the Earl of Mid- 
dleton, exercised such horrible tyranny in Scotland 
in the early part of the reign of Charles II. He was 
made Chancellor of Scotland in 1G60, and died in 
1664. His death is said to have been occasioned by 
vexation in consequence of Archbishop Sharp's hav- 
ing obtained a letter from the King to the Privy 
Council, giving the Primate precedence over the 
Chancellor — a circumstance, which, if true, does not 
give a high idea of his wisdom. It should be men- 
tioned to his credit, that he was the enemy of Laud- 
erdale and of Archbishop Sharp. 

x John Leslie, fifth Earl of Rothes, " was a man," 
observes Burnet, " of no education, all in him was 
mere nature. But it was nature very much de- 
praved ; for he seemed to have freed himself from 



56 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

Lauderdale/ whose character is too 
notorious to render any comment at pre- 
sent necessary. " They (Glencairn and 

all impressions of virtue or religion, of honour or 
good nature. He delivered himself, without either 
restraint or decency, to all the pleasures of wine and 
women. He had but one maxim, to which he ad- 
hered firmly, that he was to do every thing, and 
deny himself in nothing, that might maintain his 
greatness, or gratify his appetites." When this 
course of life was censured, it was only answered, 
" That the King's Commissioner ought to represent 
his person" To such men did Charles intrust the 
government of his native kingdom. He was made 
President of the Council in 1660. — King's Commis- 
sioner in 1663 — Lord Treasurer in 1664 — and Lord 
Chancellor, per interim — all which offices he held 
together till 1667, when he was made Lord Chan- 
cellor, but turned out of his other places, by the 
management of Lauderdale. He was created Duke 
of Rothes and Marquis of Ballinbreich in 1680, and 
died in 1682. 

y John Maitland, second Earl of Lauderdale, 
created, in 1672, Duke of Lauderdale and Marquis 
of March, in Scotland; in 1674, Earl of Guildford 
and Baron Petersham, in England ; made a Knight 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 57 

Rothes,)*' says Burnet/ " were ordered 
to proceed in their charging of him, as 

of the Garter in 1672. He was one of the worst 
characters of the many bad ones that disgraced the 
age of the second Charles. He had originally been 
a covenanter, but afterwards fought for the King at 
Worcester, where he was taken prisoner. He was a 
man of some talent, though the Duke of Buckingham 
said he had " a blundering understanding." " He 
was haughty beyond expression; abject to those he 
saw he must stoop to, but imperious to all others. 
He had a violence of passion that carried him often 
to fits like madness. He was the coldest friend, and 
the violentest enemy. He at first seemed to despise 
wealth ; but he delivered himself up afterwards to 
luxury and sensuality : and by that means he run 
into a vast expense, and stuck at nothing that was 
necessary to support it. In his long imprisonment 
(after the battle of Worcester) he had great impres- 
sions of religion on his mind : but he wore them out 
so entirely, that hardly any trace of them was left. 
His great experience in affairs, his ready compliance 
with every thing that he thought would please the 
King, and his bold offering at the most desperate 
counsels, gained him such an interest in the King, that 
no attempt against him, nor complaint of him, could 
ever shake it, till a decay of strength and under- 



58 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

the Earl of Clarendon should direct 
them. But lie told them the assaulting of a 

standing forced him to let go his hold. He was in 
his principles much against Popery and arbitrary 
government: and yet, by a fatal train of passions and 
interests, he made way for the former, and had 
almost established the latter. And, whereas, some 
by a smooth deportment made the first beginnings of 
tyranny less discernible and unacceptable, he, by the 
fury of his behaviour, heightened the severity of his 
ministry, which was liker the cruelty of an inquisi- 
tion than the legality of justice. With all this he 
was a Presbyterian, and retained his aversion to 
Charles I. and his party to his death." The same 
historian (Burnet) thus describes his appearance and 
manner : " He made a very ill appearance : he was 
very big : his hair red, hanging oddly about him : his 
tongue was too big for his mouth, which made him 
bedew all he talked to : and his whole manner was 
rough and boisterous, and very unfit for a court." 
Elizabeth Murray, Countess of Dysart, a woman of 
infamous character — corrupt, violent, cruel, and dis- 
solute, but " of great beauty, and greater parts," who 
first lived with Lauderdale, and afterwards married 
him, was supposed by her intemperate counsels to 
have led him into many of his crimes. She was the 
daughter of William Murray, who having been Page 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 59 

minister, as long as he had an interest with 
the King, teas a practice that never could 
be approved : it was one of the uneasy things 

and Whipping-boy to Charles I. was by him created 
Earl of Dysart. Lauderdale was made Secretary of 
State in Scotland in 1G60, and from the time of the 
disgrace of the Earl of Middle ton, in 1663, till his 
own death, in 1682, was the uncontrolled ruler of 
that unhappy country. 

z Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, and author 
of the valuable History of his Own Times — of the 
History of the Reformation — of the History of the 
House of Hamilton, and of other works, was born at 
Edinburgh, September the 18th, 1643 — Preacher of 
the Rolls, 1675— Bishop of Salisbury, 1689— Died, 
1 71 .5. His character has been very variously repre- 
sented, both by contempary writers, and by poste- 
rity ; which was certain to be the case, as he was not 
only a strong party man, but a strong party writer. 
Judged impartially, he would appear to have been a 
man of considerable abilities, though uncultivated, 
and of great natural shrewdness, and acute judgment, 
though the first is occasionally clouded in his works 
by a sort of awkward way of writing; and the last by 
party prejudices. He was apparently honest, con- 
scientious, and religious, though his fate and the 
circumstances of the times threw him more into the 
current of worldly politics than befits a churchman. 



60 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

that a House of Commons of England some- 
times ventured on, which ivas ungrateful to 

He was also a man of liberal principles and feelings, 
a great and rare merit in a Bishop. His talents ap- 
pear to have been allowed even by his enemies, for 
a political lampoon against him entitled " Sarum's 
Dirge," which has been attributed to Swift, thus de- 
scribes him : — 

1. 
Here Sarum lies, was once as wise 
And learn'd as Tom Aquinas ; 
Lawn sleeves he wore, yet was no more 
A Christian than Socinus. 

2. 
Oaths pro and con he swallowed down, 

And gold like any layman ; 
Wrote, preach'd, and pray'd, and yet betray 'd 

God's holy church for Mammon. 

3. 
Of every vice he had a spice, 

Although a reverend prelate : 
He liv'd and died, if not belied, 

A true dissenting zealot. 

4. 
If such a soul to Heaven has stole, 

And slipt old Satan's clutches, 
You'll then presume there may be room 

For Marlborough and his duchess. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. Gl 

the Court"* Here we have, certainly, a 
confirmation and extension of Lord Cla- 
rendon's unconstitutional views ; and, at 
the same time, an elucidation of the 
reason why he had so rooted an aversion 
to Parliaments. They sometimes as- 
saulted a minister; and, if one minister, 
why not another? As, indeed, the 
Chancellor afterwards found to his cost. 
These quotations have been brought in 
at the present moment, instead of being 
reserved for the tyrannical part of the 
Chancellor's character, to which they in 
some respects more appropriately be- 
long, because, though they do not prove 
corruption, they undoubtedly, joined 
with other collateral circumstances, very 
much favour the notion of it. It is to 

a Burnet's History of his Own Times, vol. i. Ox- 
ford Edition. 



62 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

be remembered, that a corrupt minister 
is always the one who has the greatest 
fear and dislike of Parliaments; nor 
should it be forgotten in the present 
instance, that when the House of Com- 
mons did impeach the Chancellor, out of 
seventeen articles of impeachment eight 
were for corrupt practices. This latter 
circumstances is only mentioned, as 
helping to fill up a link in the chain of 
corroborative evidence, with regard to 
Clarendon's general reputation in all 
transactions relating to money. Stand- 
ing alone, it would have proved nothing, 
but joined with other testimony, it has, 
and ought to have, its weight. 

"We shall now proceed to notice 
Anthony A' Wood's 5 accusations against 
Lord Clarendon.' 

b Anthony A' Wood, the celebrated Antiquary and 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. G3 

In his Life of Judge Glynne/ in the 
Athens Oxonienses, Anthony A' Wood 

Historiographer of the University of Oxford, was 
born at Oxford, December 17th, 1632. He was 
educated partly at New College School, in Oxford, 
and partly at the Free School, at Thame. He was 
admitted of Merton College, in 1647 — became Ba- 
chelor of Arts, in 1652, and Master of Arts, in 1655. 
In 1674, he published his " Historia et Antiquitates 
Universitatis Oxoniensis." In 1691, he published 
his more important work, entitled " Athens Ox- 
onienses," " being an exact History of all the Writers 
and Bishops, who have had their education in the 
most ancient and famous University of Oxford, from 
the fifteenth year of King Henry VII. A.D. 1500." 
He died at Oxford, November 29th, 1695. Since 
his death his Diary, written by himself, has been 
published, which is very curious, both from the 
anecdotes contained in it, and the quaint and peculiar 
manner in which they are related. Anthony A' Wood 
appears to have been a man of great research and 
industry — of considerable abilities — of a singular 
simplicity of mind — strictly honest in his opinions, 
but much prejudiced in favour of the High Church 
party. 

c John Glynne, the third son of William Glynne, 
Esq. of an ancient Welsh family, was born in 1603. 



G4 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

says, " After the restoration of King 
Charles II. he was made his eldest Ser- 
jeant at law, by the corrupt dealing of the 
then Chancellor T A Again, in speaking 

He was a supporter of the Parliament side in the 
civil wars, and, according to Wood, " a zealous co- 
venanter." He was made High Steward of West- 
minster — Recorder of London — and was a member 
of the Long Parliament. In 1655 he was sent into 
the West to arraign Colonel Penruddock, and other 
Cavaliers, taken at South Molton; in allusion to 
which expedition he is brought by Butler into Hu- 
dibras : 

" Did not the learned Glynne and Maynard, 
To make good subjects traitors strain hard V 

In the same year he was made by Cromwell Lord 
Chief Justice of the Upper Bench, and a member of 
the Protector's House of Lords. In April, 16G0, he 
was chosen to represent Carnarvonshire in Parlia- 
ment; and after the Restoration was made the King's 
eldest Serjeant at Law, by the means related in the 
text, and subsequently knighted. He died Novem- 
ber 15th, 1666. 

d Wood's Athenae Oxonienses, vol. ii. Folio Edi- 
tion. This is exactly a case in point, corroborative 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 65 

of David Jenkyns, e he observes, u After 
the restoration of King Charles II. it 
was expected by all, that he should be 
made one of the Judges in Westminster 
Hall ; and so he might have been, would 
he have given money to the then Lord 



of what we have previously seen stated by Evelyn and 
Lord Dartmouth (pages 26, 27), respecting Lord 
Clarendon's advancement of " the old rebels," and 
the reasons why he did so. And the subsequent 
anecdote concerning David Jenkyns is equally con- 
firmatory of his neglecting " the royal sufferers," 
who either could not or would not bribe him. 

e David Jenkyns was a Welshman, educated at 
Oxford, and one of the Judges for South Wales, 
V where he distinguished himself by his learning and 
eminence in his profession, and by his steady ad- 
herence to the cause of Charles I." In a letter of 
Sir Peter Pett's, he is called, " that Glorious Con- 
fessor of Loyalty, Judge Jenkyns." In 1645, he was 
taken prisoner by the Parliament forces at Hereford 
— imprisoned in Newgate — impeached for treason be- 
fore the Mouse of Commons — when, denying their au- 
thority, and refusing to kneel, lie was fined £1,000 — 



OG HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

Chancellor ; but he scorned such an act 
after all his sufferings. " f 

Here, again, are distinct charges of 
corruption brought against Clarendon — 
and by whom? By the High Church 
Anthony A' Wood, who was about as 

recommitted to prison, and afterwards transferred to 
Wallingford Castle. In 1650, an Act was passed for 
his trial before the High Court of Justice. " He now," 
says Wood, " thought of nothing but hanging, and 
resolved, if it should come to pass, to suffer with the 
Bible under one arm and Magna Charta (of which he 
was the zealous defender) under the other. " He 
was, however, spared, it is said at the intercession of 
Harry Marten, and sent to Windsor Castle, where 
he remained till 1656, when he was released. He 
retired after the Restoration into Glamorganshire, 
and died there in 1667. Wood calls him " a person 
of great abilities in his profession;" and Sir Peter 
Pett says, " he was a very acute man," and that " it 
was a scandal to the age, that he was not made a 
judge in Westminster Hall." Sir Peter adds, " Old 
Clarendon had then as much power as ever premier 
minister had." 

f Wood's Athenae Oxonienses, vol. ii. folio edition. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. G7 

great an enemy to Presbyterians as the 
Chancellor himself; and whose preju- 
dices, and they were very strong ones, 
must all have run naturally in his favour. 
This certainly gives the greater value to 
his statements; for had not the evidence 
against Clarendon been in his opinion, 
peculiarly strong, and clear, and uncon- 
trovertible, he certainly would never 
have censured him. 

It is remarkable, also, that all those 
who testify of Clarendon's corrupt prac- 
tices, with the exception of Pepys and 
Marvell — I mean Dartmouth, Wood, and 
Evelyn, were men of the same political 
opinions with himself, High Churchmen 
and High Tories, and the last was a 
personal friend — circumstances which, 
without doubt, add very considerably to 
the weight of their testimonies. 
F 2 



68 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

What happened to Wood, in conse- 
quence of the passages in the Athenae 
just quoted, must now be related. Henry 
Earl of Clarendon, the son of the Chan- 
cellor, " a man," says Burnet, g " who 
was peevish and splenetic, and whose 
judgment was not to be depended on, 
for he was much carried by vulgar pre- 
judices and false notions," 11 excited the 
University of Oxford to persecute Wood 
for what he had said of his father. The 
University was at that time almost idol- 
atrous of the name of the Chancellor 
Clarendon, who, in addition to his High 
Church and High Tory principles, had 
been also their Chancellor ; and was, as 
is well known, in an especial manner the 

g Burnet's History of his Own Times. Oxford 
Edition, vol. i. 

h For a further account of this Lord Clarendon, 
see note concerning him, page 32. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. () ( J 

patron of Churchmen and the persecu- 
tor of Dissenters. They therefore forth- 
with pronounced against Wood/ " That 
he should be banished, and deprived of 
all privileges belonging to a member of 
the University, until he should make a 
proper recantation. That the book should 
be burnt ; and that he should pay the 
costs of the suit, which amounted to 
thirty-four -pounds. " k That this vin- 
dictive proceeding against Wood 1 rather 

1 Life of Mr. Anthony A v Wood. Oxon, 1772. 

k DatedJuly 29, 1G93. 

1 Wood thought himself very harshly treated upon 
this occasion, and in his Life details his reasons for 
this opinion. He also complains that " he has been 
made a tool to recover the credit of a person that 
hath been banished twenty-eight years, and dead 
twenty." Subsequently, Wood, in a conversation he 
held with Lord Clarendon, told him, that " he had 
gotten from him more money than he could get 
again in five or six years, for he earned but 2d. per 
diem." 



70 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

strengthens than otherwise the belief in 
the truth of his accusations, or at least 
does not weaken them, can hardly be 
doubted. Punishments of this sort, in- 
flicted at the instigation of filial par- 
tiality by a prejudiced tribunal, can 
never disprove asserted facts." 1 

Among those of his contemporaries 
who seem to have thought the worst of 
the Chancellor, Andrew Marvell must 

m In 1693, Sir Peter Pett, writing to Anthony 
A v Wood on the subject of the attack upon him by 
Henry Lord Clarendon, says, " If ever you come to 
spend any time in this town, (London,) you may fish 
facts enow of incontestable truth about old Clarendon 
in the Journals of the House of Commons, and of 
the Lords, where, perhaps, I may get you leave to 
search gratis." See Letters published from the 
Bodleian, vol. i. What these facts against Claren- 
don are, to which Sir Peter alludes, we cannot now 
know. Wood apparently never accepted his invita- 
tion, and died in less than two years after the date 
of this letter. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 71 

be mentioned ; who, in his poems, re- 
peatedly accuses him of bribery, cor- 
ruption, insolence, and avarice. Marvell, 
it may be replied, was a satirist, and 
satirists are undoubtedly a race of men 
whose statements ought not to be im- 
plicitly received without deduction. But 
the way in which he frequently speaks 
of Clarendon assists at least in favouring 
the belief, that there was in those days 
a pretty general opinion that such ble- 
mishes did attach to his character. Nor 
should Marvell, who has left behind him 
one of the brightest characters for fear- 
less and noble-minded integrity in all 
history, be confounded with the numer- 
ous venal writers of libels of the age of 
Charles II., whose praise or abuse is 
of course equally without value. In 
the Poem entitled, " Instructions to a 



72 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

Painter, 1667." "Hyde's avarice" is men- 
tioned as excessive and notorious. The 
Canary patent, for the granting of which 
he was charged with having received a 
sum of money, is also alluded to : 

" Now the Canary patent may 



Be broach'd again for the great holyday." 

Also the sums he was supposed to have 
received for farming the Customs at a 
lower rate than they were worth : 

11 The kingdom's farm he lets to them bids least, 
(Greater the bribe,) and cheats at interest." 

And his insolence is thus noticed : 

" See how he reigns in his new palace culminant, 
And sits in state divine like Jove the fulminant." 

It would be endless to quote the vi- 
tuperative passages upon the Chancellor 
in Marvell's works; but these short ex- 
tracts are sufficient to show the opinion 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 73 

entertained of Lord Clarendon by a sin- 
gularly pure and incorrupt contempo- 
rary; and also to strengthen and confirm 
the argument with regard to his general 
reputation. 

I shall now again return to Pepys, and 
quote from him a transaction, which 
marks in the character of Lord Claren- 
don a fondness for money, amounting to 
something very like rapacity, supported 
as it is by other and stronger evidence 
upon the same subject. Pepys's state- 
ment of it is as follows : 

"February 22, 1664. —Whereas the 
late King did mortgage Clarendon 11 to 
somebody for £20,000, and this (King) 
had given it to the Duke of Albemarle, 

n Clarendon Park, near Salisbury. 

George Monck, descended from a gentleman's 
family in Devonshire, was born December 6, 1608. 
Having had the misfortune in a fray to kill a man, 



74 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

and he sold it to my Lord Chancellor, 
whose title of Earldome is fetched from 

he left his home early, and inlisted as a volunteer, in 
1625, under his kinsman Sir Richard Greenville or 
Granville, who was just setting out from Plymouth 
to serve under Lord Wimbledon, in an expedition 
against Spain. The following year he obtained a 
pair of colours in the expedition to the Isle of Rhee. 
From this time his course was various ; he saw much 
service by land and sea, and on all sides, and rose to 
considerable eminence in his profession. Having 
served and betrayed alternately, the King — the Par- 
liament — Cromwell — Richard Cromwell — the Par- 
liament again — and Charles II. — he, finally, had 
the good fortune to be the instrument of restoring 
the latter to the throne of his ancestors, for which 
service he received the most ample rewards. He 
was, upon the Restoration, made Baron Monck of 
Potheridge, Beauchamp, and Tees, Earl of Torring- 
ton, Duke of Albemarle ; a Knight of the Garter, 
a Privy Councillor, Master of the Horse, Gentleman 
of the Bedchamber, First Lord Commissioner of the 
Treasury, and was loaded with grants of money and 
estates, and with pensions. He was afterwards fre- 
quently employed as a naval commander, but gene- 
rally did very ill. Subsequently he sunk deservedly 
low in general estimation, from his total want of ca- 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 75 



thence; the King hath this day sent his 
order to the Privy Seale for the payment 

pacity, his corruption, and bis general unfitness for 
the high situations in which he - was placed. He 
died of dropsy, January 3, 1670. His wife was 
Ann Clarges, the daughter of a blacksmith in the 
Savoy. She was first married to Thomas Ratford, a 
farrier, and herself practised the trade of a barber, 
and is one of the persons alluded to in the song re- 
specting " The five women barbers that dwelt in 
Drury Lane." She left her first husband, after living 
with him for seventeen years, and afterwards became 
acquainted with Monck. She proved with child by 
him, and he was compelled by her family to marry 
her in 1652. She appears to have been fully wor- 
thy of her origin. Pepys describes her as " a nasty 
wife" — " a plain homely dowdy" — " a very ill-looked 
woman" — and his anecdotes of her vulgarity almost 
pass belief. She was also exceedingly corrupt — and 
during her husband's power sold every place she 
could — and sometimes, it would appear, took money 
for places, and then did not keep faith with those she 
received it from. Burnet says, " Monck was raven- 
ous, as well as his wife, who was a mean contemptible 
creature. They both asked and sold all that was 
within their reach, nothing being denied them for 
some time; till he became so useless, that little per- 



1G HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

of this £20,000 to my Lord Chancellor, 
to clear the mortgage." 13 That is to say, 
the Chancellor bought the estate of Cla- 

sonal regard could be paid him." In Pepys is the 
following anecdote respecting her. Mr. Cooling 
tells him ; " My Lord General (Monck) is grown a 
drunken sot, and drinks with nobody but Trout- 
becke, whom nobody else will keep company with." 
Of whom he told me this story ; that once the Duke 
of Albemarle in his drink taking notice, as of a won- 
der, that Nan Hide should ever come to be Duchesse 
of York : — ' Nay/ says Troutbecke, ' never wonder 
at that ; for, if you will give me another bottle of 
wine, I will tell you as great, if not greater, a mi- 
racle. ' And what was that, but ' that our dirty 
Besse (meaning his Duchesse) should come to be 
Duchesse of Albemarle.' " Pepys, in another place, 
calls the Duke " a dull heavy man." Upon the 
whole he would appear to have been a man of bra- 
very, a good officer, and possessed of a certain low 
cunning which led him to take the path that seemed 
to promise best for his own advancement — but to 
have been entirely wanting in all great qualities. — 
Under these circumstances we must allow, that he 
was one of the most fortunate personages mentioned 
in history. 

p Pepys's Diary, vol. i. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 77 

rendon of the Duke of Albemarle, sub- 
ject to a mortgage of twenty thousand 
pounds, and then made the King give 
him the money to pay it off. Surely, if 
this was not a rapacious proceeding, it 
is difficult to say what comes under that 
denomination. 

This anecdote respecting Clarendon 
Park naturally leads us to another, con- 
nected with the same place, in the rela- 
tion of which Pepys states very minutely 
what passed between the Chancellor and 
himself upon the subject ; and in which 
the cautious corruption of the former is as 
evident as possible. It will be necessary 
to quote at considerable length from 
Pepys with regard to this transaction, 
in order to enable the reader properly to 
understand it. 



78 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

" July 4th, 1664. — To my Lord's 
(Sandwich 01 ). He did begin with a 

q Edward Montagu, descended from a younger 
branch of the Montagus of Boughton, entered early 
into the career of arms, and served with distinction 
in the Parliamentary Armies, at the storming of 
Lincoln, the battle of Mars ton Moor, the battle of 
Naseby, and the storming of Bridgwater, on which 
occasions he commanded a regiment raised by him- 
self in Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. Subse- 
quently he commanded a brigade at the storming of 
Bristol. In 1653 he became a Lord of Cromwell's 
Treasury, after which he took to the Naval Service, 
and was joined in the commission with the great 
Blake; subsequently to whose death he had the sole 
command of the fleet. In 1659, being then joint 
admiral with Monck, he entered into correspondence 
with Charles the Second, and was most instrumental 
in determining the fleet in favour of the Restoration. 
He brought Charles over in his own ship from Hol- 
land, May 25th, 1660, and two days afterwards was 
made a Knight of the Garter. In July of the same 
year he was created Baron Montagu of St. Neot's, 
Viscount Hinchinbroke, and Earl of Sandwich. He 
was also sworn of the Privy Council ; made Master 
of the Great Wardrobe ; Admiral of the Narrow 
Seas ; and Lieutenant-Admiral to the Duke of York, 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 79 

most solemn profession of the same con- 
fidence in and love for me that,he ever 

Lord High Admiral of England. On the conclusion 
of the Portugal match, Lord Sandwich was sent to 
Lisbon, acted as proxy for Charles II. at the mar- 
riage, and afterwards brought the Infanta Catherine 
over to England. He subsequently commanded the 
British fleet upon different occasions with success 
during the two first Dutch wars. In 16G7 he went 
Ambassador to Madrid. In 1672, on the breaking 
out of the third Dutch war, he served as Vice- 
Admiral* under the Duke of York in the combined 
fleets of England and France, and was blown up in 
his ship in Sol bay by a Dutch fire-ship on the 29th 
of May of that year; the confederate fleets having 
been surprised by the enemy, in consequence of their 
neglect of Lord Sandwich's advice. Burnet relates 
the circumstance of this battle, and the catastrophe 
of Lord Sandwich. " The sea-fight in Solbay, in 
which De Ruyter had the glory of surprising the 
English fleet, when they were thinking less of en- 
gaging the enemy, than of an extravagant preparation 
for the usual disorders of the twenty-ninth of May? 
which he prevented, engaging them on the twenty- 
eighth, in one of the most obstinate sea-fights that 
has happened in our age; in which the French took 
more care of themselves than became gallant men ; 



80 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

bad, and then told me what a misfor- 
tune had fallen upon me and him: in 

but it was believed they had orders to look on, and 
leave the English and Dutch to fight it out, while 
they preserved the force of France entire. De 
Ruyter disabled the ship in which the Duke was, 
whom some blamed for leaving his ship too soon. 
Then his personal courage began first to be called in 
question. The admiral of the blue Squadron was 
burnt by a fire-ship, after a long engagement with a 
Dutch ship much inferior to him in strength. In it 
the Earl of Sandwich perished, with a great many 
about him, who would not leave him, as he would 
not leave his ship, by a piece of obstinate courage, 
to which he was provoked by an indecent reflection 
the Duke made on an advice he had offered, of 
drawing nearer the shore, and avoiding an engage- 
ment, as if in that he took more care of himself than 
of the King's honour." Some ten days after the 
fight Lord Sandwich's body was discovered floating 
near Harwich, being known by the star upon his 
coat, and was taken up, embalmed, and buried with 
great honour. Bishop Parker calls Lord Sandwich 
" A gentleman adorned with all the virtues of Alci- 
biades, and untainted by any of his vices ; of high 
birth, capable of any business, full of wisdom, a great 
commander at sea and land, and also learned and 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 81 

me, by a displeasure which my Lord 
Chancellor did show to him last night 
against me, in the highest and most 
passionate manner that ever any man 
did speak, even of the not hearing of 
any thing to be said to him ; but he told 
me that he did say all that could be said 
for a man as to my faithfulness and duty 
to his Lordship, and did me the greatest 
right imaginable. And what should the 
business be, but that I should be for- 
ward to have the trees in Clarendon- 
Park marked and cut down, which he, 
it seems, hath bought of my Lord Albe- 



eloquent, affable, liberal and magnificent." And 
Brandt, the Dutch author, in his Life of De Ruyter, 
says " Such was the end of this Earl, who was Vice- 
Admiral of England, valiant, intelligent, prudent, 
civil, obliging in his words and deeds; who had per- 
formed great services to his king, not only in war, 
but also in affairs of state, and in his embassies." 



82 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

marie; when, God knows, I am the 
most innocent man in the world in it, 
and did nothing of myself, nor know 
of his concernment therein, but barely 
my Lord Treasurer's warrant for the 
doing thereof, And said that I did most 
ungentlemanlike with him, and had jus- 
tified the rogues in cutting down a tree 
of his ; and that I had sent the veriest 
Fanatique that is in England to mark 
them, on purpose to nose him. All 
which I did assure my Lord, was most 
properly false, and nothing like it true ; 
and told my Lord the whole passage. 
My Lord do seem most nearly affected 
with him ; partly, I believe, for me, and 
partly for himself. So he advised me to 
wait presently upon my Lord (Claren- 
don), and clear myself in the most per- 
fect manner I could, with all submission 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 83 

and assurance that I am his creature 
both in this and in all other things; 
and that I do own that all I have is de- 
rived through my Lord Sandwich from 
his Lordship. So, full of horror, I 
went and found him busy in trials of 
law, in his great room ; and it being sit- 
ting day, durst not stay, but went to my 
Lord, and told him so ; whereupon he 
directed me to take him after dinner; 
and so away I home, leaving my Lord 
mightily concerned for me. So I to my 
Lord Chancellor's ; and there coming 
out after dinner I accosted him, telling 
him that I was the unhappy Pepys that 
had fallen into his high displeasure, and 
come to desire him to give me leave to 
make myself better understood to his 
Lordship, assuring him of my duty and 
service. lie answered me very pleas- 
g 2 



84 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

ingly, that he was confident upon the 
score of my Lord Sandwich's character 
of me, but that he had reason to think 
what he did, and desired me to call 
upon him some evening : I named to 
night, and he accepted of it. To my 
Lord Chancellor's, and there heard se- 
veral trials, wherein I perceive my Lord 
is a most able and ready man. After all 
done, he himself called, " come, Mr. 
Pepys, you and I will take a turn in the 
garden." So he was led down stairs, 
having the goute, and there walked with 
me, 1 think above an hour, talking most 
friendly, and yet cunningly. I told him 
clearly how things were ; how ignorant 
I was of his Lordship's concernment in 
it; how I did not do nor say one word 
singly; but what was done was the act of 
the whole Board. He told me by name 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 85 

that he was more angry with Sir George 
Carteret 1 " than with me, and also with 
the whole body of the Board. But 
thinking who it was of the Board that 

r Sir George Carteret was an ancient loyalist, de- 
scended from a Norman family settled in Jersey and 
Guernsey. He supported strenuously the cause of 
Charles I. in those Islands, and was by that King 
created a baronet in 1645. When Charles II. in 
1646, fled to Jersey, he and his companions were 
received and entertained by Sir George. Upon the 
execution of Charles I. Sir George Carteret imme- 
diately proclaimed Charles II. in Jersey. This, and 
his various intrigues in favour of the royal cause, so 
incensed Oliver Cromwell, that he sent a force 
against Elizabeth Castle, the fortress in Jersey, where 
Sir George was shut up. Sir George, after defend- 
ing it for some time, was at last obliged to escape to 
the continent. On the Restoration he was made 
Vice Chamberlain to the King, Treasurer of the 
Navy, and a Privy Councillor. He died in 1679, 
aged seventy-nine. His son Sir Philip Carteret, 
who had married Lord Sandwich's daughter, was 
blown up in that nobleman's ship in Solbay. His 
great grandson was that eminent statesman, John 
Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl of Granville. 



86 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

did know him least, he did place his 
fear upon me; but he finds that he is 
indebted to none of his friends there. I 
think I did thoroughly appease him, till 
he thanked me for my desire and pains 
to satisfy him : and upon my desiring to 
be directed who I should of his servants 
advise with about this business, he told 
me nobody, but would be glad to hear 
from me himself. He told me he would 
not direct me in any thing, that it might 
not be said the Lord Chancellor did la- 
bour to abuse the King; or (as I of- 
fered) direct the suspending the report 
of the purveyors : but I see what he 
means, and will make it my work to do 
him service in it. But, Lord ! to see 
how he is incensed against poor Deane, 
as a fanatick rogue, and I know not 
what: and what he did was done in 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 87 

spite to his Lordship, among all his 
friends and tenants. He did plainly 
say, he would not direct me in any 
thing, for he would not put himself into 
the power of any man to say that he did 
so and so ; but plainly told me as if he 
would be glad I did something. Lord ! 
to see how we poor wretches dare not 
do the King good service for fear of the 
greatness of these men." 8 

" July 18th, 1664.— Sir George Car- 
teret and I did talk together in the 
Parke about my Lord Chancellor's 
business of the timber ; he telling me 
freely that my Lord Chancellor was 
never so angry with him in all his life, 
as he was for this business, and in a 
great passion ; and that when he saw 

• Pepys's Diary, vol. i. 



88 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES. 

me there he knew what it was about. 
And plots now with me how we may 
serve my Lord, which I am mightily glad 
of; and I hope together we may do it. 
Thence I to my Lord Chancellor, and 
discoursed his business with him. I 
perceive, and he says plainly, that he 
will not have any man to have it in his 
power to say that my Lord Chancellor 
did contrive the wronging the King of 
his timber; but yet, I perceive, he would 
be glad to have service done him therein; 
and told me, Sir George Carteret hath 
told him, that he and I would look after 
his business to see it done in the best 
manner for him." 1 
" July 20th, 1664.— With Mr. Deane, u 



I Pepys's Diary, vol. i. 

II Deane Anthony was, according to Pepys, an 
ingenious mechanician. He was Knighted by 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 89 

discoursing upon the business of my 
Lord Chancellor's timber, in Clarendon 
Park, and how to make a report therein 
without offending him ; which at last I 
drew up, and hope it will please him. 
But I would to God neither I nor he 
ever had any thing to have done with 
it."* 

The plain English of this transaction 
is this. The timber in Clarendon Park 
belonged to the King, and Pepys, Sir 
George Carteret, and the other Commis- 
sioners of the Admiralty, wished in con- 
sequence to have it cut down for the 
use of the navy. But the Chancellor, 
who had bought the land, wished to have 



Charles II. — held the office of Commissioner of the 
Navy — and was Member of Parliament for Harwich. 
■ Pepys'a Diary, vol. i. 



90 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

the trees also ; though without the 
trouble and expense of buying them. y 

It should be observed, that this was 
his grateful return to the King for the 
magnificent present he had made him, 
only four months before, of twenty thou- 
sand pounds, to clear off a mortgage on 
this very estate. And not only did the 
Chancellor wish to deprive the King of 
his trees, but he wished to do it without 
any personal risk to himself, by bullying 
and threatening the unhappy Commis- 
sioners of the Admiralty ; to oblige 



y It is evidently to transactions of this kind that 
Andrew Marvell alludes, in his poem entitled " Cla- 
rendon's House-warming." 

" His woods would come in at the easier rate, 
So long as the yards had a deal or a spar ; 
His friend in the navy would not be ingrate, 
To grudge him some timber who found him the war." 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 91 

them to make a report in his favour. 
It is well observed by Pepys (and gives, 
by the way, a good measure of the state 
of those times, as well as of the arrogance 
and power of the Chancellor,) " Lord ! 
to see how we poor wretches dare not 
do the King good service for fear of the 
greatness of these men!" 

This relation altogether is a most 
curious one, because it is told by the 
very man himself, who was brought into 
communication with the Chancellor, ex- 
pressly for the purpose of serving his 
rapacious purposes ; and because the 
simplicity and clearness of the narration 
must carry conviction of its truth to the 
mind of every one. To be sure a less 
creditable transaction to the fame and 
character of Clarendon can hardly be 
conceived ; whether we regard the cor- 



92 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES. 

ruption, which is its foundation ; the in- 
gratitude to the King, which forms its 
superstructure ; or the baseness, which 
crowns the whole, of obliging, by threats 
and intimidation, the Admiralty Com- 
missioners to abandon their duty, for the 
purpose of furthering his unlawful ends; 
and of thus shielding his own person and 
character from any future disgrace that 
might arise, in consequence of their 
being gratified. 

Before concluding our inquiries into 
this part of the character of Lord Chan- 
cellor Clarendon, it will be necessary to 
say a few words respecting the sale of 
Dunkirk to the French, which took 
place during his administration, in the 
year 1663. Not only, indeed, did this 
event happen while Clarendon was in 
office, but, as Rapin observes, " it is a 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 93 

fact as certain as a fact of this nature 
can be, that he proposed it, negociated 
the sale, and concluded it." z In proof 
of this, it is only necessary to refer to 
the letters of Estrades, a the French Ple- 
nipotentiary, upon the subject ; in which 
he distinctly states, that the Chancellor 
told him the idea of the sale of Dunkirk 
came from himself. — " The Chancellor 
added," says he, in a letter to Lewis 
XIV., " that the thought of this treaty 
came from him, and did not conceal, 



z Rapin's History, vol. ii. p. 630. 

a Godfrey Count d'Estrades was born in 1607, and 
died in 1686. He was employed by Lewis XIII. 
and XIV. in various embassies and negotiations, in 
which he conducted himself with considerable ability 
and dexterity. He was made Governor of Dunkirk 
1650 — Perpetual Mayor of Bordeaux 1653 — Lieu- 
tenant General of the Province of Guienne 1663 — 
Knight of the Holy Ghost I 67 1 —Marshal of France 
1675 — Governor of the Duke de Chartres (after- 
wards the Regent Duke of Orleans) 1685. 



94 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

that the necessity of the English affairs 
had inspired him with it. That the 
King, the Duke of York, and himself, 
were alone of this opinion, and that 
Monk, the Lord Treasurer, and the Earl 
of Sandwich, were still to be managed, 
who he could not hope to gain, but by 
the great sums which would accrue to 
the King : b That having already pro- 
posed it to them from the urgent occa- 
sions of the state, they had offered an 
expedient to preserve the place for the 
King, and to ease him of this expense." 

b What a scene of corruption in the English 
government does this open to us, if true — and if not, 
how disgraceful to the Chancellor thus to calumniate 
his colleagues. Was the " Virtuous Southampton" 
(the Lord Treasurer), as here alleged, susceptible of 
bribery ? or did the Chancellor judge of others by 
himself, and intend to appropriate the shares of his 
less venal brethren ? 

c Letlres, Memoires, et Negociations, du Comte 
d'EstradeSj vol. i. — Letter of August 17th, 1662. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 95 

It should be observed, that at the very 
moment this disgraceful bargain was 
going on, and as if to take away every 
honest excuse for its being completed, 
the Parliament were ready to take Dun- 
kirk off the King's hands, and to defray 
all the expenses incidental to its preser- 
vation, at the same time leaving to him 
the rights and privileges he already pos- 
sessed over it. This is the expedient 
alluded to in the previous extract, and 
which is so explained in the continuation 
of the same despatch. 

Again in another letter Estrades says, 
that, the Chancellor told him, " as he 
was not the master, and was highly 
concerned to take care of himself in so 
nice an affair, he was obliged to conceal 
his sentiments, and pretend to adhere to 
those of others, that he might not be 



90 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

taken for the principal author of the 
treaty. " d These passages are so con- 
clusive to the point of the Chancellor's 
having been the inventor, if it may be so 
termed, of the sale of Dunkirk, that it is 
surprizing the fact should ever have been 
doubted by historians. It should be 
observed though, that those who do 
doubt it, generally take their opinions 
from Echard e and Burnet, who both 
wrote their historical works previously 
to the publication of these letters of the 
French Diplomatist. 

d Lettres, &c. d'Estrades, vol. i. — Letter of Aug. 
21st, 1662. 

e Laurence Echard, a laborious compiler of his- 
tory, without much talent, was a beneficed clergyman 
of the church of England. He was born about 
1671, and died 1730. His principal works are a 
Roman History, an Ecclesiastical History from the 
Birth of Christ, a History of England, and a History 
of the Revolution in 1688. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 97 

It has been the fashion to disbelieve 
the accusation brought against the 
Chancellor, of his having been induced 
by corrupt motives to suggest and urge 
on the delivering up of this place ; and 
perhaps, had this transaction stood alone, 
I might also have been inclined to adopt 
the same opinion. But after all that 
has been brought forward in the previous 
pages respecting the corruption of Cla- 
rendon, I own it appears to me, that we 
are justified in coming to an entirely 
opposite conclusion. 

Dunkirk had been acquired to Great 
Britain by Cromwell, as the price of his 
entering into a treaty with France 
against Spain, from whom it had lately 
been wrested by the united arms of the 
two former powers. 

Whether it would really have been of 

Tl 



98 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

great advantage to England, had it been 
preserved, may be doubted ; as though, 
from its situation, it might have afforded 
a shelter for our privateers, instead of 
those of the enemy; a retreat for our 
fleets, if beaten ; or a safe landing place 
for our armies ; all these advantages 
would apparently have been fully ba- 
lanced by the very large expense attend- 
ing its preservation/ These, however, 
are the views which a more enlightened 
system of policy has taught the world. 
In the days of Clarendon they were very 
much unknown. It was then thought 
that establishments on the Continent of 
Europe were of the greatest importance 
to England, and were to be preserved as 
the most valuable appendages of the 

1 Macdiarmid's Lives of British Statesmen, vol. ii. 
2<\ edition. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON, 99 

British crown. Hence the despair of 
Mary at the loss of Calais : hence the 
anxiety of Cromwell to obtain Dunkirk 
as an equivalent for that loss : and hence 
the universal cry of reprobation through 
the country when the latter place was 
lost to us for ever. 

It is not to be supposed that Claren- 
don, though a man undoubtedly of great 
abilities, was so much before his con- 
temporaries, and especially before the 
able and experienced Cromwell, in the 
science of politics, as to see through the 
specious reasons for the preservation of 
Dunkirk. Why, then, did he consent 
to its abandonment to please a profligate 
and dissolute court; who, evidently from 
the first, only thought of the sale in the 
hope of squandering the money received 
from it on their unworthy pleasures?— 
n 2 



100 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

Nay, why was he the principal adviser 
and promoter of the scheme ? Why 
does he even write to Estrades, " I shall 
hold myself the most unfortunate man, 
if this affair be not crowned with suc- 
cess" ? g Why does he urge on the bar- 
gain, at the same time that, fully aware 
of the opinion of the country on the 
subject, he writes thus to the same 
negociator ? " They who know any 
thing of the present temper of this king- 
dom must believe, that, as the delivery 
of that place would never be consented 
to by the parliament, or in truth by the 
privy council, if it should be referred to 
their judgment, so the delivering it up 
by the King's immediate authority will 
be as ungracious and unpopular an act 

* Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. — Letter of 
August 28th, 1662. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 101 

to the whole nation as can be put in 
practice." 11 The only satisfactory or in- 
telligible explanation, which can be 
given to his conduct under these cir- 
cumstances is, that a portion of the 
money which the sale produced was to 
fall by agreement to his share. With- 
out this, the sale of Dunkirk by him 
is an enigma which wants a key ; and 
this key it is surely neither unnatural 
nor uncharitable to apply to it, after all 
the previous evidence to similar transac- 
tions we have just been reading. 

When upon the subject of the sale of 
Dunkirk, it may not be amiss to notice 
the odium incurred by the Chancellor in 
consequence of his erection of a palace 
in Piccadilly, the size and cost of which 

h Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. — Letter of Au- 
gust 9th, 1(362. 



102 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

were entirely unsuited to his private 
fortune. This magnificent structure, 
which was begun some time after the 
sale of Dunkirk, occupied, together with 
its gardens, the site of Dover Street and 
Albemarle Street; and the centre of its 
front exactly answered to the top of 
St. James's Street, which it commanded. 
The grant of the ground Clarendon had 
obtained from the King. After the 
Chancellor's disgrace it was sold to the 
Dukes of Albemarle. Christopher 
Monck, 1 second Duke of that name, sold 

' Christopher Monck, second Duke of Albemarle, 
was the only son of George the first duke. He was 
born in 1653 — succeeded his father in 1670 — was 
made a Knight of the Garter and a Privy Councillor in 
1671. Having by his own extravagance entirely ruined 
his fortune, he became connected, in the hope of 
retrieving it, with some buccaneers, who had formed 
a plan for weighing up a vast mass of specie, which 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 103 

it again to a builder, who pulled it down, 
and erected the before-mentioned streets 



had been sunk in some Spanish galleons near the 
Island of Jamaica. In order to facilitate their object, 
they persuaded him to ask for the government of 
that Island ; to which he was appointed in 1687, and 
died there the same year. His wife, however, (who 
was Elizabeth Cavendish, eldest daughter and co- 
heiress of Henry Cavendish, second and last Duke of 
Newcastle of that name,) got possession of the 
money, which had been obtained from the wrecks, 
and sailed to England with it, having, as it is alleged, 
cheated the buccaneers of their share. Shortly after 
this she became insane, and declared her intention of 
never marrying again, unless she was wooed by the 
Grand Turk. Ralph Montagu, first Duke of Mon- 
tagu, (one of the corrupt political intriguers of the 
school of Charles II.,) paid his addresses to her in 
that character, and actually married her in the dis- 
guise of a Turkish dress. He then shut her up in 
Newcastle House, Clerkenwell ; and with her 
money built Montagu House, now the British 
Museum. This Elizabeth Duchess of Albemarle 
and Montagu lived, always insane, till the 28th of 
August, 1731, when she died, in the ninety-sixth 
year of her age. 



104 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

on its site. The building cost £50,000, 
an enormous sum in those days. k 

If we wish to have an idea of its mag- 
nificence, we must refer to Evelyn, an 
excellent judge of such matters, who 
thus speaks of it. 

" I acknowledge to your lordship that 
I have never seen a nobler pile. It is, 
without hyperbolies, the best contrived, 
the most useful, graceful, and magnifi- 
cent house in England — I except not 
Audley End ; which, though larger, and 
full of gaudy and barbarous ornament, 
does not gratify judicious spectators. 
As I said, my lord, here is state and 
use, solidity and beauty, most symetri- 



k Smith's Antiquities of London. — Londina Illus- 
trata. — Burnet's History of his Own Times, Oxford 
Edition, vol. i. — Evelyn. — Pennant. — Macdiarmid's 
Lives of British Statesmen, vol. ii. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 105 

cally combined together. Seriously, 
there is nothing abroad pleases me 
better ; nothing at home approaches 
it." 1 

Marvell, in the poem before adverted 
to, " Clarendon's House-warming," 
charges the Chancellor with having re- 
ceived money and presents from various 
quarters to enable him to complete his 
mansion. 

11 He lik'd the advice, and then soon it assay'd, 

And presents crowd headlong to give good ex- 
ample, 
So the bribes overlaid her that Rome once betray 'd; 
The tribes ne'er contributed so to the Temple. 

Straight judges, priests, bishops, true sons of the 
seal, 
Sinners, governors, farmers, bankers, patentees, 



1 Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. ii. — Letter to Lord 
Cornbury. 



10G HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

Bring in the whole mite of a year at a meal, 
As the Chedder Club's dairy to th' incorporate 
cheese. 



By subsidies thus, both cleric and laic, 

And with matter profane cemented with holy ; 

He finish'd at last his palace Mosaic, 

By a model more excellent than Lesly's folly." 

The same author also has left us the 
following Epigram on Clarendon House. 

11 Here lie the sacred bones 
Of Paul beguiled of his stones : m 
Here lie golden bribries, 
The price of ruin'd families ; 
The Cavalier's debenter wall, 
Fix'd on an eccentric basis : 
Here's Dunkirk Town and Tangier Hall, 
The Queen's marriage and all 
The Dutchman's templum pacis." 

The Chancellor called it Clarendon 
House ; but the malicious public affixed 

m It was built with the stones which had been col- 
lected for the rebuilding of St. Paul's church. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 107 

the name of Dunkirk House to it, as if it 
had been built with the money proceed- 
ing from the sale of that place. 11 Others 
also called it Holland House, upon the 
supposition that the Chancellor had re- 
ceived bribes from the Dutch. Whether 
Clarendon House was erected with 
French or Dutch money, or with both, 
it is impossible for us at this distance of 
time, with the slender evidence upon 
the subject we possess, to decide. After, 
however, all that has been previously 
brought forward with respect to the 
corruption of the Chancellor upon the 
subject of Dunkirk, the question of 
whether he erected his house with the 
money so received, is not of much im- 
portance in any way to either his fame 

■ MacdiarmkL — Hume. — NeaTs History of the 
Puritans.— Burnet's History of his Own Times. 



108 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

or his character. If he received money 
from the sale of Dunkirk, (and we have 
seen very sufficient grounds to believe 
that such was the case,) it is equally 
probable he did from the Dutch; and 
that he employed these means in erect- 
ing a mansion, which his own finances 
would not otherwise have allowed him 
to undertake, is also equally probable. 
But our belief in this must rest very 
mainly upon evidence as to his general 
character ; as the Chancellor himself 
must necessarily have been the only 
person who could exactly know from 
what source the funds were drawn, with 
which he built his house. 

We now come to the consideration of 
the second part of the charge to be esta- 
blished against Clarendon ; namely, 
that he was a cruel and tyrannical 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 109 

minister. If the arguments and autho- 
rities I have brought forward with regard 
to his inclination to rapacity and corrup- 
tion have been deemed at all conclusive, 
I shall have little doubt of establishing 
the facts of his cruelty and tyranny. 
For the latter qualities are so much more 
generally acknowledged, as forming part 
of his character, than the former ones, 
that even the panegyrists of the Chan- 
cellor confess them, in some measure at 
least, at the same time that they deplore 
them. Rapacious and corrupt proceed- 
ings are naturally more concealed and 
secret faults ; but cruelty and tyranny, 
where they exist in the breast of a man 
in power, cannot long lie hid from the 
eyes of the world. The arbitrary nature 
of Lord Clarendon's principles has been 
already exemplified in his conversation 



1 10 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

with the Earls of Glencairn and Rothes, 
on the subject of the impeachment of 
Lauderdale; and in his general aversion 
to parliaments : but these were only 
words, his acts and deeds are what best 
show him in his true light, with regard 
to the two points of character at present 
under consideration. 

It is well known that, previous to the 
Restoration, the Chancellor was the sole 
minister of Charles, who, from his natu- 
rally indolent disposition, abandoned 
himself implicitly to his guidance. He 
was in consequence the adviser as well 
as the framer of the celebrated Declara- 
tion from Breda, by which the King 
bound himself to afford to the people of 
England Liberty of Conscience in mat- 
ters of religion. Nothing can be well 

° Dated April 4-14th, 1660. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 1 1 1 

stronger than the expressions of this 
Declaration. It states that, U because 
the passion and uncharitableness of the 
times have produced several opinions in 
religion, by which men are engaged in 
parties and animosities against each 
other ; which, when they shall hereafter 
unite in a freedom of conversation, will 
be composed, or better understood; we 
do declare a liberty to tender con- 
sciences ; and that no man shall be dis- 
quieted, or called in question, for differ- 
ences of opinion in matters of religion 
which do not disturb the peace of the 
kingdom ; and that we shall be ready 
to consent to such an act of parliament, 
as upon mature deliberation, shall be 
offered to us, for the full granting that 
indulgence. "r> 

* Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, Oxford 
Edit. vol. vii. 



1 1 2 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

At this time, namely, before the Re- 
storation, it was very convenient, indeed 
absolutely necessary, for the views of 
the Chancellor that the promise of tole- 
ration given " upon the word of a King" q 
should be thus explicit; as England was 
at that time still under the rule of the 
Presbyterians. But no sooner was it 
discovered, upon the arrival of Charles 
in this country, that the nation was so 
mad with present pleasure, and so reck- 
less of future consequences, that any 
thing might be done with them, than the 
Chancellor changed his tone. The same 
hand that had framed the declaration of 
toleration, began to employ itself in 
framing acts of the most penal nature. 
Having persuaded the King solemnly to 
promise liberty of conscience at Breda, 
Clarendon had now the profligacy (for I 

q See Declaration, 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 113 

can call it by no other name) to per- 
suade him to break that promise, and 
to commence a persecution, which for 
cruel and unrelenting severity has been 
rarely equalled in history. Undoubtedly 
Charles's submitting thus to be guided 
to do evil was most disgraceful to him- 
self; but the active part of the crime 
entirely remains with the Chancellor; 
for it is certain that Charles, who was 
himself a Papist, was, generally, friendly 
to toleration, for the sake of his own sect. 
Neal, r in his History of the Puritans, 

r The Rev. Daniel Neal, the historian of the Pro- 
! iters, was born in London, December 

1 1th., 1678, and was educated at Merchant Taylor's 
School. He wrote several pamphlets and sermons, 
but his principal work is his History of the Puritans; 
which is written with considerable ability, and, con- 
sidering the circumstances of the author, with Bur- 
prising impartiality. Neal died April 4th, 1743, 
much regretted ,; by his family and friend.-, by whom 

I 



114 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

distinctly says, " the King seemed to be 
for concessions to the Presbyterians; 
but the Court Bishops, with Lord Cla- 
rendon at their head, were absolutely 
against it: Clarendon was a man of high 
and arbitrary principles, and gave him- 
self up to the Bishops, for the service 
they had done him in reconciling the 
King to his daughter's clandestine mar- 
riage with the Duke of York." The 
rest of the ministry, at the head of whom 

he was highly esteemed as a man of great prohity, 
piety, and usefulness. Dr. Toulmin, in his account 
of his Life, says of his religious tenets, that - His 
doctrinal sentiments were supposed to come nearest ( 
to those of Calvin; which he looked upon as most 
agreeable to the Sacred Scriptures, and most adapted 
to the great ends of religion. But neither were his 
charity nor his friendships confined to men of his 
own opinion. The Bible alone was his standard for 
religious truth; and he was willing and desirous that 
all others should be at perfect liberty to take and 
follow it as their own rule." 

• Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 115 

was the respectable Earl of Southamp- 
ton, were of the King's opinion. 1 They 
pressed Clarendon to consent to an Act 
of Toleration; and wished, by conces- 
sions on both sides, to endeavour to re- 
concile the Presbyterians, and the High 
Church Party. But the Chancellor had 
now thrown off the mask, and was de- 
termined to make the sectaries, whom 
he naturally Metested, feel his power. 

1 Macdiarmid's Lives of British Statesmen. 

u In proof of the rancorous hatred borne by Cla- 
rendon to the Presbyterians, it is only necessary to 
refer to various passages in his History and in his 
Life. Such, among others, as the following sweep- 
ing expressions : — " It is impossible for men who 
would not be deceived, to depend upon either their 
ingenuity or their integrity." 

" Their faction is their religion: nor are those 
combinations ever entered into upon zeal and sub- 
stantial motives of conscience, how erroneous soever ; 
but consist of many glutinous materials of will, and 
humour, and folly, ami knavery, and ambition, and 

malice." 

i 2 



11G HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

An excuse was soon oftered to him, 
for commencing his severities against 
them, in the frantic insurrection of a 
handful of fanatics, who called them- 
selves fifth monarchy men. Hume thus 
relates the circumstance : 

" Venner, a desperate enthusiast, who 
had often conspired against Cromwell, 
having, by his zealous lectures, inflamed 
his own imagination and that of his fol- 
lowers, issued forth with them into the 
streets of London. They were, to the 
number of sixty, completely armed, be- 
lieved themselves invulnerable and in- 
vincible, and firmly expected the same 
fortune which had attended Gideon and 

" They carry always a chagrin about them, which 
makes them good for nothing." 

" Nothing but a severe execution of the law can 
ever prevail upon that class of men to conform to 
government." — Continuation of Life of Edward Earl 
of Clarendon. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 117 

other heroes of the Old Testament. 
Every one at first fled before them. One 
unhappy man, who, being questioned, had 
said, ' he was for God and King Charles/ 
they instantly murdered. They went tri- 
umphantly from street to street, every 
where proclaiming King Jesus, who, they 
said, was their invisible leader. At 
length, the magistrates, having assem- 
bled some train-bands, made an attack 
upon them. They defended themselves 
with great order as well as valour; and 
after killing many of the assailants, they 
made a regular retreat into Cane Wood, 
near Hampstead. Next morning, they 
were aliased thence by a detachment of 
the Guards; but they ventured again to 
invade the city, which was not prepared 
to receive them. After committing great 
disorder, and traversing almost every 



1 1 8 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

street of that immense capital, they shut 
up themselves in a house, which to the 
last extremity they were resolute to de- 
fend. Being surrounded, and the house 
untiled, they were fired upon from every 
side; and they still refused quarter. 
The people rushed in upon them, and 
seized the few who were alive. They 
were tried, condemned, and executed; 
and to the last they persisted in affirm- 
ing, that, if they were deceived, it was 
the Lord that had deceived them." v 

" Clarendon," continues Hume, " and 
the ministry, took occasion from this 
insurrection to infer the dangerous spirit 
of the Presbyterians and of all the sec- 
taries : but the madness of the attempt 
sufficiently proved, that it had been un- 
dertaken by no concert, and never could 

* Hume's History of England, vol. vi. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 119 

have proved dangerous. The well- 
known hatred too, which prevailed be- 
twixt the Presbyterians and the other 
sects, should have removed the former 
from all suspicion of any concurrence in 
the enterprize. But, as a pretext was 
wanted, besides their old demerits, for 
justifying the intended rigours against 
them, this reason, however slight, was 
very greedily laid hold of." x 

Having advanced thus far in the course 
of premeditated persecution, the Chan- 
cellor proceeded rapidly to the consum- 
mation of his wishes ; and commenced 
the modelling of his penal code. The Pres- 
byterians-' meanwhile, many of whom 
foresaw the storm which was about to 
burst over their heads, were attempted 

x Hume, vol. vi. 
Neal. — Rennet's Chronicle. — Baxter's Life. 



120 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

to be lulled into security by the Con- 
ference of the Savoy, which took place 
according to the King's Declaration of 
October 25th, 1660, between twenty- 
one of the most eminent Presbyterian 
divines, and an equal number of those of 
the Established Church. This confer- 
ence met nominally to discuss questions 
regarding the Liturgy of the Church of 
England, and other disputed points be- 
tween the two Churches ; but nothing 
of this kind was ever really meant by 
Clarendon z to arise from it. He only 
intended to make use of it, for the pur- 
pose of blinding the eyes of the Pres- 
byterians, with regard to the ulterior in- 
tentions of government; and at the same 
time to give to the public an appear - 

* Neal. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 121 

ance, as if the ministry had done all in 
their power to conciliate the sectaries. 

Shortly after the insurrection of Ven- 
ner, the Chancellor/ in a conference 
between the two Houses, affirmed posi- 
tively, that there was a real conspiracy 
against the peace of the kingdom ; and 
that though {t was disconcerted in the 
city, it was carried on in divers counties. 
A committee was, therefore, appointed to 
inquire into the truth of the report ; but 
after all their examinations not one single 
person was convicted, or so much as 
prosecuted for it. b " Great pains were 
taken to fasten some treasonable designs 
on the Presbyterians. Letters were sent 
from unknown hands to the chiefs of the 
party in various parts of the kingdom, 

Veal's History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 
b Kennet'a Chron. — Rapin. 



122 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

intimating the project of a general in- 
surrection, in which their friends were 
concerned, and desiring them to com- 
municate it to certain persons in their 
neighbourhood, whom they name in their 
letters, that they may be ready at time 
and place. A letter of this kind was 
directed to the Reverend Mr. Sparry, 
in Worcestershire, desiring him and 
Captain Yarrington to be ready with 
money; and to acquaint Mr. Oatland 
and Mr. Baxter with the design. This, 



c Baxter Richard, the celebrated Non-conformist 
divine ; a man who was much admired and much perse- 
cuted in his lifetime, and has been much praised and 
much abused since his death. Bishop Burnet seems 
in a few words to have exactly hit off his character. 
" He was a man of great piety ; and if he had not 
meddled in too many things, would have been 
esteemed one of the learned men of the age : he had 
a very moving and pathetical way of writing, and was 
his whole life long a man of great zeal and much 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 123 

with a packet of the same kind, was 
said to be left under a hedge by a 
Scotch pedlar; and as soon as they were 
found, they were carried to Sir J. 
Packington, who immediately commit- 
ted Sparry, Oatland, and Yarrington, 
to prison. The militia of the county 
was raised, and the city of Worcester 
put into a posture of defence ; but the 
sham was so notorious, that the Earl of 
Bristol/ though a Papist, 6 was ashamed 

simplicity ; but was most unhappily subtle and me- 
taphysical in every thing." He wrote one hundred 
and forty-five distinct treatises. When Boswell 
asked Dr. Johnson which of Baxter's works he 
should read, the latter answered, " read any of 
them ; they are all good." The same author called 
Baxter's reformed Liturgy, which he drew up for 
the Savoy conference, " one of the finest composi- 
tion of the ritual kind -he had ever seen." Baxter 
Was horn November 12th, 1G15, and died December 
8th, 1691. 

d George Digby, second Earl of Bristol, was the 



124 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

of it ; and after some time, the prisoners, 
for want of evidence, were released." f 

eldest son of Earl John, the opponent of Villiers, 
first Duke of Buckingham. He was born in Octo- 
ber, 1612, and died March, 20th, 1676, having 
passed a conspicuous, restless, and eccentric exist- 
ence. He attempted to reconvert his cousin, Sir 
Kenelm Digby, to Protestantism, who had become 
a Roman Catholic: the issue of which controversy 
was, that Lord Bristol adopted the religion of Sir 
Kenelm. His character is thus sketched by Cla- 
rendon. " The Lord Digby was a man of very ex- 
traordinary parts by nature and art ; a graceful and 
beautiful person ; of great eloquence and becoming- 
ness in his discourse, (save that sometimes he seemed 
a little affected,) and of so universal a knowledge, 
that he never wanted subject for a discourse: hew T as 
equal to a very good part in the greatest affairs, but 
the unfittest man alive to conduct them, having an 
ambition and vanity superior to all his other parts, 
and a confidence peculiar to himself, which some- 
times intoxicated, and transported, and exposed 
him." Burnet says of him, " The Earl of Bristol 
was a man of courage and learning, of a bold temper, 
and a lively wit, but of no judgment nor steadiness. 
When he went beyond sea, he turned Papist, but it 
was after a way of his own : for he loved to magnify 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 125 

Upon these proceedings Burnet also 
remarks, that, though " many were 
taken up upon these reports, none were 



the difference between the Church and the Court of 
Rome. He was esteemed a very good speaker : but 
he was too copious, and too florid. He was at the 
head of the Popish party, and was a violent enemy 
of the Earl of Clarendon." Finally, Walpole de- 
scribes him to have been " a singular person, whose 
life was one contradiction. He wrote against Po- 
pery, and embraced it ; he was a zealous opposer of 
the Court, and a sacrifice for it ; was conscientiously 
converted in the midst of his prosecution of Lord 
Strafford, and was most unconscientiously a prose- 
cutor of Lord Clarendon. With great parts, he al- 
hurt himself and his friends ; with romantic 
bravery, he was always an unsuccessful commander. 
He spoke for the Test Act, though a Roman Catho- 
lic, and addicted himself to astrology on the birth- 
day of true philosophy." 

e The Papists were peculiarly inimical to the Pres- 
byterians — first, on account of old grudges; and, se- 
condly, in the hope of turning away the attention and 
pi Tsecuting propensities of the nation from them- 

1 Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. i\ 



120 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

ever tried for them." He then adds, 
that it was supposed these stories of 
plots " were forged by the direction of 
some hot spirits, who might think such 
arts were necessary to give an alarm, 
and by rendering the party odious, to 
carry so severe an act against them." 
The act was the Act of Uniformity. He 
says Lord Clarendon was charged with 
having contrived these artifices ; but he 
was inclined to think they proceeded 
from " some foul dealing among the 
fiercer sort." g Locke observes, that 
" the reports of a general insurrection 
were spread over the whole nation by 
the very persons who invented them;" 
while Rapin distinctly declares it to be 
his opinion, that Lord Clarendon was 

* Burnet's History of his Own Times, Oxford Edi- 
tion, vol. i. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 127 

the author of these rumours of plots ; 
which, he adds, " were absolutely ne- 
cessary to the High Church party to 
serve for a foundation to what was in- 
tended to be done." h He continues, 
that none, " who are not prejudiced 
by passion or party, can help thinking 
this conspiracy" (the one examined into 
by a Committee of both Houses) " a 
mere invention to give some colour to 
the Act of Uniformity. The govern- 
ment durst not attack the Presbyterians 
on account of their religion. The De- 
claration from Breda was too express 
on that article. But they were to be 
charged with new crimes, in order to be 
deprived of the benefit of that declara- 
tion. They were not even accused of 

11 Rapin, vol. ii. 



128 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

attempting to disturb the state, since 
the Kings restoration ; but the Non- 
conformists in general were accused, in 
order to punish the Presbyterians, as if 
they made but one body with the Inde- 
pendents, Anabaptists, and Enthusiasts, 
because to all these sects were given 
the common name of Non-conformists." 1 
Whereas, as we have already seen, by 
the testimony of Hume, the separation 
and estrangement, which existed be- 
tween these different religionists, were 
wide and irreconcileable. 

The first fruit of the Chancellor's 
sham conspiracies was the Corporation 
Act, passed in 1661. It was drawn up 
by him, and ordains, that in all cities, 
corporations, boroughs, cinque ports, 

1 Rapin, vol. ii. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 129 

and other port towns in England and 
Wales, every mayor, alderman, com- 
mon councilman, or any other officer in 
a corporation, shall be obliged, besides 
the common oath of Allegiance and 
Supremacy, and a particular declara- 
tion against the Solemn League and 
Covenant, to take an oath, declaring, 
That it is not lawful, upon any pretence 
ichatsocver, to take arms against the King ; 
and that he does abhor that traitorous posi- 
tion of taking arms by his authority against 
his person, or against those commissioned 
by him} It was also enacted by the 
same act, that no person should here- 
after be elected or chosen into any of 
the offices or places aforesaid, that 
should not have, within one year next 



k Rapin. 



130 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

before such election or choice, taken the 
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, ac- 
cording to the rites of the Church of 
England. 1 Thus, at one blow, were 
the Non-conformists ejected from all 
branches of the magistracy, and in fact 
robbed of their rights as subjects."" 1 
Echard confesses that this oath seems at 
once to give up the whole constitution, 
which is also remarked by Rapin. Ano- 
ther author says, " one would suppose 
that the Parliament, who prescribed 
such an oath, must have been as near- 
sighted and as stupid as they were 
servile and corrupt. Such a maxim 
of non-resistance to the King, on any 
pretence, was directly subversive of 
their own consequence, as well as of 
civil and religious liberty. The extent 

1 Neal. m Ib. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 131 

to which this principle might be carried 
was put to the proof by James II. but 
the people of England rent asunder the 
chains which had been forged for them 
by their perfidious representatives. 11 

On the subject of this act it is only 
necessary at present further to observe, 
that the injustice of Clarendon in pro- 
curing its enactment was not more con- 
spicuous than the innate tyranny of his 
nature, which dictated the oath of non- 
resistance, or the cruelty with which 
that and the other clauses were en- 
forced. 

The next step taken by the Chan- 
cellor in his course of persecution, and 
which in fact put the finishing stroke to 

n Secret History of the Court and Reign of Charles 
II. vol. i. 

°Rapin. — Neah 

K2 



132 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

the whole work, was the enactment of 
the Act of Uniformity, also drawn up, 
proposed, and carried through by Cla- 
rendon. This took place in the month 
of May, 1662, and by it every minister 
was obliged, on pain of losing all his 
ecclesiastical preferments, to conform to 
the worship of the Church of England, 
according to the new Book of Common 
Prayer, before the Feast of St. Bartho- 
lomew 15 next, from whence it was called 
the Bartholomew Act. q Every minister 
was also obliged to sign a declaration, 
affirming his assent and consent to every 
thing contained in and prescribed by 
the Book of Common Prayer/ Any 
minister also, who had not received his 



» The 24th of August. 
q Rapin, vol. ii. 
1 lb. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. loo 

ordination at the hands of a bishop, was 
compelled to be episcopally re-ordained. 
Every one was commanded to take the 
oath of canonical obedience — to abjure 
the solemn League and Covenant — and 
to deny the lawfulness of taking arms 
against the King, or any commissioned 
by him, on any pretence whatsoever. 5 

It was, of course, obvious from the 
first, that the Presbyterians neither 
could nor would submit to these provi- 
sions. Thus, therefore, was the solemn 
promise given by the King in his De- 
claration from Breda, that " no man 
should be disquieted or called in ques- 
tion for differences of opinion in matters 
of religion,'" entirely broken and ren- 
dered of none effect : and thus, at the 

1 Neal'i II the Puritans, vol. iv. 



134 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

same time, did Clarendon requite a nu- 
merous, pious, and loyal body of men, 
for the eminent services they had ren- 
dered in restoring the King to the 
throne of his ancestors. 

Neal, in his History of the Puritans, 
remarks upon this act, " that the terms 
of conformity were by it raised higher 
than before the civil wars ; and the 
Common Prayer Book more exception- 
able ; for instead of striking out the 
Apocryphal lessons, more weire inserted, 
as the story of Bel and the Dragon : and 
some new holidays were added, as St. 
Barnabas, and the Conversion of St. 
Paul; a few alterations and new col- 
lects were made by the bishops them- 
selves, but care was taken, says Burnet, 
that nothing should be altered as was 
moved by the Presbyterians. The vali- 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 135 

dity of Presbyterian ordination was re- 
nounced, by which the ministrations of 
the foreign churches were disowned. 
Lecturers and schoolmasters were put 
upon the same foot with incumbents as 
to oaths and subscriptions. A new de- 
claration was invented, which none who 
understood the Constitution of England 
could safely subscribe — and to terrify 
the clergy into a compliance, no settled 
provision was made for those who should 
be deprived of their livings, but all were 
referred to the royal clemency. A se- 
verity, says Bishop Burnet, neither 
practised by Queen Elizabeth in enact- 
ing the Liturgy, nor by Cromwell in 
ejecting the royalists ; in both which a 
fifth of the benefice was reserved for 
their subsistence." 1 

1 NeaTs History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 



136 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

At length arrived the fatal St. Bartho- 
lomew ; only three months having been 
allowed to prepare the Presbyterians for 
the change that was expected from them. 
Upon this occasion about two thousand 
ministers resigned their benefices, and 
preferred poverty and wordly ruin with a 
pure conscience, to affluence and dignity 
accompanied with remorse. The pro- 
visions of the act were executed with 
the utmost rigour and severity; and it 
seems as if Sheldon u Archbishop of Can- 

11 Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, was 
born July 19th, 1598. His father was, according to 
Wood, " a menial servarit" to Gilbert Earl of Shrews- 
bury. He was called Gilbert after that nobleman, 
who was his godfather. At the beginning of his 
clerical career he became domestic Chaplain to Lord 
Keeper Coventry. In 1660 he was made Bishop of 
London, and in 1663 Archbishop of Canterbury. 
He died November 9th, 1677. Sheldon appears to 
have been a man of talents and of generosity, though 
too ostentatious in his gifts and charities; but more 



KESPECTING CLARENDON. J 37 

terbury, who was a creature of Claren- 
don's, was even disappointed that the 
ejectments of ministers had not been still 
more numerous. On its being observed 
to him by Dr. Allen, " It is a pity the 
door is so strait," he answered " It is no 

of a politician than a churchman, and in his conduct 
to other sects a cruel and most intolerant High 
Priest. Burnet thus describes him ; " Sheldon was 
esteemed a learned man before the wars : but he was 
afterwards engaged so deep in politicks, that scarce 
any prints of what he had been remained. He was 
a very dexterous man in business, had a great quick- 
ness of apprehension, and a very true judgment. 
He was a generous and charitable man. He had a 
gri at pleasantness of conversation, perhaps too great. 
He had an art, that was peculiar to him, of treating 
all that came to him in a most obliging manner : but 

depend* d much on his professions of friendship. 
He seemed not to have a deep sense of religion, if any 
at all: and spoke of it most commonly as of an en- 
gine of government, and a matter of policy. By this 
means the King (Charles II.) came to look upon him 

wise and honest clergyman, though he had little 
virtue, and less n ligion." 



138 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

pity at all, if we had thought so many of 
them would have conformed, we would have 
made it straiter."* A sentiment certainly- 
worthy of the supporter of such a mea- 
sure ! 

But though the barbarity of the High 
Church Divines sanctioned Clarendon in 
his intolerant and oppressive measures, 
the feeling of the nation was against 
him. The ministers dispossessed were, 
according to Locke, " worthy, learned, 
pious, orthodox divines," distinguished 
by their zeal and abilities, and conse- 
quently much regretted by the people : 
and the more so, because those who 
were put in to supply their places, were 
frequently the very reverse of their 
predecessors/ Even the colleagues of 
Clarendon in the ministry were against 

x Neal. y Burnet. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 139 

his proceedings; especially Lord South- 
ampton, who, though his strenuous 
friend, openly dissented from him on 
this occasion; and declared that if such 
an oath as that exacted from the Clergy 
were to be imposed upon the laity, he 
for one would refuse to take it. z 

Though the passing of these two laws, 
the Corporation Act and the Act of 
Uniformity, had crushed the power of 
the Presbyterians, and reduced great 
numbers of their clergy to destitution 
and misery, the Chancellor was by no 
means contented, because the laity 
among the sectaries had thus far escaped 
persecution. To remedy this omission, 
he, in 1GG4, incited the House of Com- 
mons to pass an Act, which has been 

• Macdiarmid's Lives of British Statesmen, vol. ii. 



140 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

since knwn by the name of The Con- 
venticle Act. 

By this Act/ any person above the 
age of sixteen, being present at any 
Meeting or Conventicle, under colour 
or pretence of any exercise of religion in 
other manner than according to the 
Liturgy or practice of the Church of 
England, where should be present five 
or more persons than the household, was 
made liable, for the first offence to a fine 
of £5, or three months' imprisonment. If 
the offender was a peer, the penalty was 
f 10. The second offence was visited 
with a fine of £10, or six months' impri- 
sonment; and £20 for a peer: — and the 
third, with transportation to the Planta- 
tions, after a trial by jury, or of a peer 

a Rapin. — Neal. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 141 

by his peers, unless a fine of £100 was 
paid. In case the culprits returned 
from transportation, they were to be 
adjudged felons, and to suffer death 
without benefit of clergy. Sheriffs or 
Justices of the Peace, or others commis- 
sioned by them, were empowered to dis- 
solve, dissipate, and break up all unlaw- 
ful conventicles, and to take into cus- 
tody those among the congregation whom 
they thought fit. Those persons who 
suffered conventicles to be held in their 
houses or barns were liable to the same 
forfeitures as other offenders. Married 
women taken at conventicles were to be 
imprisoned for twelve months, unless 
their husbands paid forty shillings for 
their redemption. Such were the prin- 
cipal provisions of this most infamous 
law, which was contrived by Clarendon, 



142 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

and carried into execution by him, with 
the aid of a bigoted and violent House 
of Commons, against the wishes of his 
colleagues in office, and of the King 
himself. The melancholy consequences 
of the Conventicle Act to the Presbyte- 
rians, and the cruel treatment they expe- 
rienced under the provisions of it, are 
thus described by Neal. 

" This Act was a terrible scourge over 
the laity, put into the hands of a single 
justice of the peace, without the verdict 
of a jury, the oath of the informer being 
sufficient. By virtue of it the jails in 
the several counties were quickly filled 
with Dissenting Protestants, while the 
Papists were covered under the wing of 
the prerogative. Some of the Ministers, 
who went to church in sermon time, 
were disturbed for preaching to a few of 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 143 

their parishioners after the public service 
was over; their houses were broke open, 
and their hearers taken into custody; 
warrants were issued out for levying 
£20 on the minister, £20 upon the house, 
and five shillings upon each hearer. If 
the money was not immediately paid, 
there was a seizure of their effects, the 
goods and wares were taken out of the 
shops ; and in the country, cattle were 
driven away and sold for half the value. 
If the seizure did not answer the fine, 
the minister and people were hurried to 
prison, and held under close confinement 
for three or six months. The trade of 
an informer began to be very gainful, 
by the encouragement of the spiritual 
courts. At every Quarter-Sessions se- 
veral were fined for not coming to church, 
and others excommunicated: nay, some 



144 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

have been sentenced to abjure the realm, 
and fined in a sum much larger than all 
they were worth in the world." b 

" Before the Conventicle Act took place 
the laity were courageous, and exhorted 
their ministers to preach till they went 
to prison ; but when it came home to 
themselves, and they had been once in 
jail, they began to be more cautious, 
and consulted among themselves how to 
avoid the edge of the law in the best 
manner they could ; for this purpose 
their assemblies were frequently held 
at midnight, and in the most private 
places ; and yet, notwithstanding all 
their caution, they were frequently dis- 
turbed ; but it is remarkable, that under 
all their hardships they never made the 

b Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 
Baxter's Life. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 145 

least resistance, but went quietly along 
with the soldiers or officers, when they 
could not fly from them. The distress 
of so many families made some confine 
themselves within their own houses, 
some remove themselves to the planta- 
tions, and others have recourse to occa- 
sional conformity, to avoid the penalty 
for not coming to church." d 

" So great was the severity of these 
times, and the arbitrary proceedings of 
the justices, that many were afraid to 
pray in their families, if above four of 
their acquaintance, who came only to 
visit them, were present. Some families 
scrupled asking a blessing on their meat 
if five strangers were at table. In Lon- 
don, where the houses join, it was 

d "Seal's History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 
I 



14G HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

thought the law might be evaded if the 
people met in several houses, and heard 
the minister through a window or hole 
in the wall ; but it seems this was over- 
ruled, the determination being (as has 
been observed) in the breast of a single 
mercenary justice of peace." e 

But, however harsh and relentless was 
the manner, in which the regulations of 
the law against conventicles were put in 
force, it by no means satisfied the Chan- 
cellor; whose capacity of persecution 
appears to have been fully worthy of 
those better clays, when the fires of 
Smithfield were lighted against heresy. 
" This Bill," he observes in his own life, 
" was looked upon as the greatest dis- 
countenance the Parliament had yet 
given to all the factions in religion, and 
if it had been vigorously executed, would 
e Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 147 

no doubt have produced a thorough re- 
formation." f 

Rapin says, the reason of " the ex- 
treme rigour of this act, was not so 
much to punish the pretended transgres- 
sions of the Presbyterians, as to drive 
them to despair, that they might render 
themselves guilty indeed." 5 If this was 
indeed the Chancellor's barbarous and 
horrible intention, his memory ought to 
be doubly hateful to every just and 
honourable mind. And that some such 
motive actuated him is surely obvious 
from the following circumstances. — 

1st. That this act was but one link in a 
chain of premeditated persecution, which 
was neither called for by the circum- 

f Continuation of the Life of Edward Earl of Cla- 
rendon. 
* Rapin's History of England, vol. ii. 

l2 



148 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

stances of the times, nor by the disposi- 
tions of the court. 2dly. That it was 
directed most particularly against that 
peculiar body of dissenters, who were 
the most orderly and the best subjects 
of all the sectaries ; and who had, at the 
late restoration, given proofs of the 
greatest loyalty. 3dly. That the vexa- 
tious severity, with which the provisions 
of the act were put in force, could evi- 
dently answer no purpose but that of 
irritating the victims of it to madness, 
and thereby inciting them to acts of in- 
subordination and rebellion. 

The following year (1665) the Chan- 
cellor completed his penal code by the 
enactment of the Five Mile Act. This was 
a measure of the most vexatious cruelty, 
and intended by Clarendon to deprive 
the non-conformist ministers of the very 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 149 

means of subsistence, by separating 
them from their friends, and from those 
to whom they were known. By it, no h 
non-conformist teacher, under what de- 
nomination soever, was allowed to dwell 
or come, unless upon the road, within 
five miles of any corporation or any other 
place where he had been minister, or 
had preached, after the Act of Oblivion, 
unless he first took the following oath. 
I do swear that it is not lawful upon any 
pretence whatsoever to take arms against 
the King ; and that I do abhor the traitor- 
ous position of taking arms by his autho- 
rity against his person, or against those 
that are commissioned by him, in pursuance 
of such commissions ; and that I will not at 
any time endeavour any alteration of govern- 
ment either in church or state. The for- 
h Rapin. 



150 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

feiture for each offence was the sum of 
forty pounds, one-third of which was to 
go to the King, another third to the poor, 
and a third to the informer. It was 
further enacted, that such as should 
refuse the oath aforesaid, should be 
incapable of teaching any public or pri- 
vate schools, or of taking any boarders 
to be taught or instructed, under pain of 
the same fine. Any two justices of 
peace, upon oath made before them of 
any offence committed against this act, 
were empowered to commit the offender 
to prison for six months, without bail or 
mainprize. 1 

An anonymous author before quoted 
observes upon this act, " that it seemed 
to be the last step in the climax of into- 
lerance ; for to deprive men of the means 

i Neal. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 151 

of subsistence implies more deliberate 
cruelty, though it does not excite so 
much horror, as fire and faggots. " J 

Rapin, who strongly reprobates the 
Five Mrle Act, tells us, that it met with 
great opposition in the House of Lords, 
even from the Earl of Southampton, 
Lord Treasurer, though the intimate 
friend of Lord Clarendon, the principal 
author of the persecution against the 
non-conformists. k Southampton, in his 
place in the House, declared that, " it 
enforced an unlawful and unjustifiable 
oath, which no honest man could take.'' 1 
The Lords Wharton and Ashley, and Dr. 
Earl, Bishop of Salisbury," 1 also vehe- 
mently opposed the bill ; but Lord Cla- 

j Secret History of the Reign of Charles II., 
vol. ii. 

k Rapin, vol. ii. — Burnet. — Echard. 

1 I Fume. — NeaL ■ Neal. 



152 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

rendon and the rest of the bishops, toge- 
ther with most of the secret favourers of 
popery, n (who hoped, by turning public 
indignation against the Protestant secta- 
ries, to direct it from their own religion,) 
were too strong for them, and it passed 
triumphantly ; and on the 31st of Octo- 
ber, 1665, received the royal assent. 

" The great body of the non-con- 
formist ministers," as had been expected, 
" refused to take the oath, choosing 
rather to forsake their habitations, their 
relations and friends, and all visible sup- 
port, than destroy the peace of their 
consciences. Those ministers who had 
some little estate or substance of their 
own, retired to some remote or obscure 
villages, or such little market-towns as 
were not corporations, and more than 

n Burnet. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 153 

five miles from the places where they 
had preached; but in many counties it 
was difficult to find such places of retire- 
ment ; for either there were no houses 
untenanted, or they were annexed to 
farms, which the ministers were not 
capable of using ; or the people were 
afraid to admit the ministers into their 
houses, lest they should be suspected as 
favourers of non-conformity. Some 
took advantage of the ministers' neces- 
sities, and raised their rents beyond 
what they could afford to give. Great 
numbers were thus buried in obscurity ; 
while others, who had neither money nor 
friends, went on preaching as they 
could, till they were sent to prison, 
thinking it more eligible to perish in a 
jail than to starve out of one; especially 
° Baxter- Life, —Burnet. 



154 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

when by this means they had some 
occasional relief from their hearers, and 
hopes that their wives and children 
might be supported after their deaths 
Many who lay concealed in distant 
places from their flocks in the day-time, 
rode thirty or forty miles to preach to 
them in the night, and retired again be- 
fore day-light. These hardships tempted 
some few to conform (says Mr. Baxter) 
contrary to their former judgments; 
but the body of dissenters remained 
steadfast to their principles, and the 
church gained neither reputation nor 
numbers. The informers were very dili- 
gent in hunting after their game ; and 
the soldiers and officers behaved with 
great rudeness and violence. When 
they missed of the ministers, they went 

p Baxter's Life. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 155 

into the barns and out-houses, and some- 
times thrust their swords up to the 
hilts in the hay and straw, where they 
supposed they might lie concealed ; 
they made havoc of their goods, and ter- 
rified the women and children almost 
out of their lives." q 

" And, as if the judgments of heaven 
upon this nation were not heavy enough, 
nor the legislature sufficiently severe, 
the bishops must throw their weight 
into the scale ; for, in the very midst of 
the plague, July 7th, 1665, Archbishop 
Sheldon sent orders to the several 
bishops of his province to return the 
names of all ejected non-conformist 
ministers, with their places of abode and 
manner of life ; and the returns of the 
several bishops are still in the Lambeth 

1 NeaTs History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 



15G HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

Library. The design of this inquiry was 
to gird the laws closer upon the dis- 
senters, and to know by what means 
they earned their bread : and if this 
tender-hearted archbishop could have 
had his will, they must have starved, or 
sought a livelihood in foreign countries." 1 * 
It was computed that sixty thousand per- 
sons suffered on a religious account 
under these persecutions, and that of 
this number Jive thousand perished in 
prison. 8 

In speaking of the series of penal 
acts, which we have been just enumera- 
ting, Hume in conclusion observes, 
" had not the spirit of the nation under- 
gone a change, these violences were 
preludes to the most violent persecu- 

r Neal's History of the Puritans, vol, iv. 
8 Godwin's Lives of the Philips's. — Jeremiah 
White's Collection. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 157 

tion."* The change the spirit of the 
nation underwent was caused by the 
disgrace and banishment of Clarendon in 
1G67. " It was a great ease that befel 
good men by his fall/' says Baxter, 
M for his way was to decoy men into 
conspiracies, or pretended plots, and 
upon those rumours innocent people 
were laid in prison, so that no man 
knew when he was safe ; whereas since 
his time, though the laws have been 
made more severe, yet men are more 
safe.' u It is impossible to afford a 
greater proof of the vexatious tyranny of 
Lord Clarendons administration, than 
may be derived from an attentive consi- 
deration of the foregoing extract. Bax- 
ter, who wrote it, was himself a contem- 

1 Hume's History, vol vi. 
u Baxter's Life. 



158 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

porary and a sufferer; and in those 
capacities he delivers it as his deliberate 
opinion, that, though after the Chancel- 
lor's fall the laws themselves were made 
more harsh, they were more tolerable to 
live under, because no longer executed 
by his unrelenting and implacable hand. 

I shall conclude the account of the 
Chancellor's religious persecutions in the 
impressive words of two writers of emi- 
nence. 

" The author of the Declaration of 
Breda, and of the repeated violations of 
the faith of that declaration towards all 
persons dissenting from the Church of 
England and the liturgy, was the Earl 
of Clarendon. By a singular destiny 
all the folly, the impolicy, and the guilt 
of his administration, has been swallowed 
up in his character as an historian ; and 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 159 

in consideration of his having enriched 
the world with an admirable narrative 
of the adversities of Charles L, posterity 
have been inclined to forgive him all the 
enormities he perpetrated as first minister 
of Charles II." v " His lordship was 
undoubtedly a person of very consider- 
able abilities, which have been suf- 
ficiently celebrated by his admirers, but 
I have not been able to discover any 
great or generous exploits for the service 
of the public ; and how far his conduct 
with regard to the non-conformists was 
consistent with humanity, religion, or 
honour, must be left with the reader. " w 
In order to give additional testimony 
of the power and arrogance* of the 

v Godvi u - of the Philips's. 

w Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. iv. 

x Rapid says of him, " that his behaviour was 
vou^h, and always too haughty." 



160 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

Chancellor, as they appeared to his con- 
temporaries, it will now be necessary to 
return to Pepys's Diary, and to state his 
account of two conversations he held 
with Mr. Povy and Sir William Coventry. 
In June, 1667, Mr. Povy y tells him, 
u That the Duke of York's marriage 
hath undone the kingdom, by making the 
Chancellor so great above reach, who 
otherwise would have been but an ordi- 
nary man to have been dealt with by 
other people ; and he would have been 
careful of managing things well, for fear 
of being called to account ; whereas now 
he is secure, and hath let things run to 
rack, as they now appear." z 

y Mr. Povy, according to the noble Editor of 
Pepys's Diary, was named Thomas Povy ; was 
Member of Parliament for Bossiney in 1658 ; and 
subsequently Treasurer for Tangier. 

7 Pepy's Diary, vol, ii. Mr. Povy again delivers 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 161 

In September of the same year 
Pepys, in a conversation with Sir Wil- 
liam Coventry, a says to him, " I did 

the same opinion in a subsequent conversation with 
Pep; 

a Sir William Coventry was, according to the uni- 
versal testimony of his contemporaries, a very emi- 
nent man. Sir William Temple in his Memoirs says, 
" Sir William Coventry had the most credit of any 
man in the House of Commons, and I think the most 
deservedly." Burnet calls him " a man of great 
notions and eminent virtues, and the best speaker in 
the House of Commons," and adds, that when he 
knew him, " he had become a very religious man." 
Pepys omits no opportunity of praising him ; and 
Lord Dartmouth observes, " that he was the most 
esteemed and beloved of any courtier that ever sat 
in the House of Commons, where his word always 
passed for an undoubted truth without further in- 
quiry : which the Duke of Buckingham would have 
had him make use of to deceive them, upon which 
Coventry challenged him." The Duke of Buck- 
ingham, as it is well known, was not of a fighting 
disposition, and he therefore got Coventry forbid the 
court. Upon this he retired to Minster Lovel in 
Oxfordshire ; and passed the rest of his days in 
tranquil retirement, refusing all places that were 
M 



162 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

then desire to know, what was the great 
matter that grounded his desire of the 
Chancellor's removal ? He told me 
many things not fit to be spoken, and 
yet not any thing of his being unfaithful 
to the King, but, instar omnium, he told 
me that while he was so great at the Council 
Board, and in the administration of matters, 
there was no room for any body to propose 
any remedy to what was amiss, or to com- 
pass any thing, though ever so good for the 
kingdom, unless approved by the Chan- 
cellor, he managing all things with that 

subsequently offered to him. He was the fourth 
and youngest son of Thomas, first Lord Coventry, 
and sometime Lord Keeper. He was long a Member 
of Parliament. On the Restoration he was made 
Secretary to the Duke of York ; in 1662 he was a 
Commissioner of the Admiralty; in 1665 he was 
Knighted, and sworn of the Privy Council ; in 1667 
he was made one of the Commissioners of the 
Treasury. He died June 23d, 1686, at Somerhill 
near Tunbridge. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 163 

greatness which will now be removed* that 
the King may have the benefit of others' 
advice." 

Here we close the case against Lord 
Clarendon upon the score of his corrupt 
and rapacious practices, of his cruel and 
tyrannical measures ; but there are one 
or two other points in his character, one 
or two other acts of his life, which ought 
to be mentioned, though they do not 
come precisely under these heads. 
They are, his encouragement of the 
attempts to assassinate Cromwell ; the 
act he passed upon the subject of the 
religion of Charles II. ; and the blas- 
phemous comparison he makes in his 
History in speaking of the execution of 

b The King had taken the Great Seal from him on 
the 13th of August. 

Pepys'a Diary, vol. ii. 

y 2 



1G4 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

the first Charles. The first will tend to 
show how little scrupulous he was of 
the means he employed to compass his 
ends — the second displays in its full 
perfection the crooked policy of the 
thorough-paced politician — while the 
third gives us some notion of the degree 
of respect for religion entertained by this 
pretended patron of the Protestant faith. 
We find abundant proofs in the col- 
lection of the Clarendon State Papers, 
published at Oxford in 1786, of the 
connivance of the Chancellor in the 
bloody designs of some of the more un- 
principled cavaliers to murder Cromwell. 
Indeed, it appears that a regular account 
of the proceedings of these ruffians was 
sent to him, and that they were incited 
by him to persevere in them. It is not 
by any means impossible that he may 
even have been himself the author of 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 165 

some of these brilliant schemes ; at all 
events it is evident, from the style of the 
different letters addressed to him upon 
the subject, that he did not in any way 
discourage them. 

On the 27th of January, 1657, Captain 
Titus/ under the name of Mr. Jennings, 

- c Silas Titus was the author of the celebrated 
Pamphlet entitled " Killing no murder," of which 
the object was to incite persons to the assassination 
of Cromwell. Titus, as we have seen in the text, 
did not confine his attempts against Cromwell's life 
to his pen. Clarendon, apparently at the Restoration, 
quarrelled with his former tool Titus, perhaps left 
him unrewarded ; for he is mentioned by Sir Peter 
Pett, in a letter to Anthony A v Wood, as one of the 
Chancellor's opponents in Parliament. He was a 
mere adventurer, and served at different periods of 
his life all sides and all parties. Swift says, " he 
was the greatest rogue in England," which is not dif- 
ficult to be believed. He was born about 1622, and 
died some time during the reign of William III. 
He was first a Captain in the Parliament army ; 
afterwards Groom of the Bed-chamber to Charles 
II. : a great supporter of Titus Oates and the 
Popish Plot: and subsequently made a Privy Coun- 



166 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

writes thus from Antwerp to Sir Edward 
Hyde. 

" Never was any thing more unhap- 
pily prevented than the killing Crom- 
well the first day of the Parliament, and 
I find the relation Saxby e made of that 
business was true, for Major Wood was 
a spectator. All things were as well 
prepared as was imaginable, and Major 
General Brown resolved, had it taken 
effect, to engage ; since that time, those 
that were to do it have grown cold, and 

cillor by James II. He was long a Member of the 
House of Commons. 

c Saxby was an adventurer, who appears to have 
volunteered his services through Father Talbot, to 
murder Cromwell. But, though he did not shrink 
from crime, he seems to have been peculiarly fanciful 
and nice in smaller matters, for Father Talbot, in his 
letter to Charles in the Clarendon State Papers, 
dated November 22d, 1656, begs that he maybe 
excused, when presented to the King, from kneeling, 
" which," he says, " he thinks to be a sort of 
idolatry!" 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. I ()7 

could never agree of the way ; but 
Major Wood is very confident, that had 
not Saxby come away, the business had 
been done long since, and I cannot but 
be of the same opinion. However, there 
is yet no disorder in the affair, and 
Saxby is resolved to prosecute it, and 
speedily to put things to a trial ; and to 
that purpose he is preparing to go sud- 
denly for England, and Major Wood 
with him, and I believe Massey and 
Jennings will not stay long behind them. 
I am most importunely interrupted, and 
am forced to break off, and therefore 
crave your pardon till the next post."' 

The same personage again writes to 
him on the 3d of February. 

" I shall now give you a fuller ac- 

Clarendon State Papers, vol, iii 



168 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

count of this unlucky business than yes- 
terday I had time to do. I shall not 
trouble you much with my opinion con- 
cerning it, because it is so easy and 
common to find faults when things have 
miscarried, and not very ingenuous to 
judge of things, and censure them by 
the effects. But as far as I can see into 
the matter, this powder plot required 
too much time, too many persons, and 
was subject to too many accidents to be 
carried on with any reasonable hopes 
that it should succeed. Saxby and 
Major Wood were of the same opinion; 
but Wildman was opinionated in the 
business, and his authority prevailed. 
And by a letter of his he seems to insi- 
nuate, that this was not only intended 
to destroy Cromwell, but if he should 
chance to escape, the setting Whitehall 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 169 

on fire was to be the watchword to a 
rising; but this leaves us still in good 
hopes that Cecill, that discovered all, 
never did know Saxby, Wildman, or 
who Major Wood was, but only came 
in upon the score and confidence of 
him, that, as they say, hath suffered for 
it? Vg 

Again, on the 17th of the same month, 
he writes as follows : — 

u It seems this plot was not disco- 
vered by Cecill as we heard, but by 
one of Cromwell's life-guards, whom 
Cecill had made privy to it, upon a con- 
fidence he had, that being a discon- 
tented person, he would have assisted in 
it. This fellow betraying Cecill, Cecill 
immediately confessed all he knew, and 

? Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. 



170 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

more. Upon this Syndercombe was 
apprehended, who singly beat the guard 
that was sent to apprehend him, and 
made them cry out murther ; but at last 
one getting behind him cut off his nose, 
and so they took him. No man can be- 
have himself with greater resolution than 
he hath done, and we are confident will 
do ; and then the discovery can be made 
no farther. Wildman hath assured 
Saxby that all things were so disposed, 
that had it not been discovered, Crom- 
well had not lived that night/' h 

On the 15th of March he writes from 
Breda — " Sir, I had long before now 
prevented yours of the 7th, but that I 
had nothing worth your trouble. Saxby 
came with me to this place, and is since 
gone to Amsterdam, from whence I have 

h Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 171 

not yet heard from him, but daily ex- 
pect a summons to meet him. I believe 
that immediately upon his return he 
will go for England, and I am confident 
that he will either procure Cromwell's 
death or his own, for I know he goes as 
much resolved in that purpose as any 
man can do ; and I know if any man can 
have opportunity to effect it he will. 
And Major Wood assures me, that had 
not Saxby come out of England when 
he did, the business had not been now 
to do. This thing in effect is all I can 
persuade myself to rely upon ; for that 
Saxby should be able by his interest to 
divide the army, and to get a party con- 
siderable enough to oppose Cromwell 
by force, I have not any proportion of 
faith to believe.' 1 

1 Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. 



172 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

Father Peter Talbot, a Catholic priest, 
deeply engaged in the plots against 
Cromwell, and who, it appears, intro- 
duced the assassin Saxby to the notice 
of the King and of Clarendon, writes 
thus from Ghent to the latter, on the 
18th of August, 1657:— 

" I have had a relation of Colonel 
Saxby 's ill fortune, he was betrayed 
both in Holland and England; and 
though Cromwell should poison him, 
the business is not yet lost, though the 
loss of his person be great. There are 
endeavours from divers parties to cut 
Cromwell off, as I suppose you know 
better than L" k 

The death, by natural means, of Oli- 
ver Cromwell, on the 3d of September, 

k Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 173 

1G58, prevented the Chancellor from 
assisting in the perpetration of the crime, 
which it is proved by these documents, 
he had concurred in meditating. The 
guilt of intention however rests with him 
in the clearest and most satisfactory 
manner. This is acknowledged even, 
and deplored, by his panegyrist Mac- 
diarmid, who says, — " It is not to be 
concealed that even Hyde encouraged 
the attempts of Captain Titus and others 
to assassinate Cromwell. To such a 
degree do men reconcile themselves to 
the worst means, when they are eagerly 
bent on the end, that even this consci- 
entious minister, in his devotion to the 
rights of the King, forgot what was due 
to the rights of human nature." 1 

1 Macdiarmid'a Lives of British Statesmen, vol. ii. 



174 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

At the time of the Restoration Claren- 
don was certainly aware that Charles II. 
was a Roman Catholic ; and therefore 
had he been the good Protestant he af- 
fected to be ; had he had the welfare of 
the Reformed religion, or indeed of the 
country, as much at heart as he pro- 
fessed, so far from assisting to restore 
Charles, he would have insisted upon his 
being excluded. At all events he would 
have stated what he knew upon the 
subject of his religion, and then left 
the people to make their own choice. 
Instead of this he carefully concealed 
the fact, but passed an act in July, 
1661, by which he made " any man 
who should maliciously or advisedly 
publish or affirm that his Majesty was a 
Papist™ liable to all the severe penalties 

m Rapin. 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 175 

of a praemunire." n That is to say, he 
inflicted a most unjust punishment upon 
any one who should say what he, Cla- 
rendon, who made the law, knew to be 
true. This may be thought a small cir- 
cumstance, but it surely shows the 
unjust, the unconstitutional, and the 
crooked policy of Clarendon in the 
strongest and most remarkable light. 

I now come to the last point to which 
I shall have to call the attention of the 
reader: namely, the Chancellor's com- 
parison of the martyrdoms of our blessed 
Saviour and of Charles I. In his His- 
tory, when speaking of the execution of 
King, he has this sentence, " The pro- 
nouncing that horrible sentence upon 
the most innocent person in the world, 



176 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

and the execution of that sentence by 
the most execrable murder that was ever 
committed since that of our blessed Sa- 
viour." 

Upon this passage Warburtons obser- 
vation is, " nothing can excuse this in- 
decent reference in a pious man like the 
noble historian." 9 Had Clarendon been 
" a pious man" he certainly would never 
have made the remark; nor would it 
even have entered into his head to do 
so. Thousands, tens of thousands of 
men more innocent than the tyrannical 
Charles q have been put to death, with- 



° Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, Oxford 
Edition, vol. vi. 

p Extracted from Bishop Warburton's curious 
Notes on Lord Clarendon's History, published in the 
last edition of that work. 

q I beg it to be understood, that though I apply the 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 177 

out their executions being likened to 
that of the Saviour of mankind. It 
shows either a most perverted intellect, 
or the grossest ignorance of the religion 
of the New Testament to have even 
thought of making such an allusion. 1 



epithet " tyrannical" to Charles, I am by no means 
prepared to go the length of justifying his execution 
by the Parliament. But that when he had power, he 
fully justified the charge of tyranny, no impartial 
man can, I think, deny. 

r The University of Oxford were guilty of a similar 
act of irreverence. They had two portraits made of 
Christ and of Charles I. exactly similar in every re- 
spect, and with an account of the sufferings of each at 
the bottom of his respective likeness. These pictures, 
in the memory of persons now alive, were hung as 
pendants to one another in the Bodleian Library. The 
improved taste of the present day lias caused one to 
be removed into the Picture Gallery. The other re- 
mains in its old position — and thus both may still be 
examined by those who are curious in tracing the 
baseness and blasphemy of the supporters in old 
times of the doctrines of passive obedience. 



17B HISTORICAL INQUIRIES 

And yet this is the man who is held up 
by some historians to all posterity as the 
champion of Christianity. That he re- 
stored the Church to its possessions, 
and the bishops to their seats in the 
House of Lords, is undoubtedly true, 
because he regarded them as a useful 
state engine, and intimately connected 
with a monarchical form of government : 
But this is a very different thing from 
his having been himself a sincere Chris- 
tian ; which the whole tenor of his life 
would indeed lead us to doubt. His 
conduct to the sectaries, which has been 
already related, proves that he was far 
from being actuated by the mild and 
forgiving tenets of the Gospel, and the 
comparison just quoted, though it may 
be deemed at first sight of small import- 
ance, is surely an additional evidence 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 179 

how little he was really acquainted with 
the subject. 

Having said thus much upon the dif- 
ferent points which it w r as my wish and 
intention to bring before the notice of the 
public, I deem it fair to add, that, though 
my decided conviction is that Clarendon 
was all that I have stated, I am by no 
means disposed to deny that he had 
merits : that in private life his conduct 
was good : that as a minister he was (as 
indeed I have before stated) more de- 
cent, and probably more conscientious 
than his successors : and that, in point 
of talents, he was one of the very first 
men of his age. These subjects, how- 
ever, do not come in detail within the 
scope of my plan, narrowed, as it pro- 
ed to be at the commencement of 
these pages, to the elucidation of parti- 
N 2 



180 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES. 

cular circumstances in the life and cha- 
racter of the Chancellor, hitherto but 
little noticed by his biographers. 

Thus have been laid before the reader 
the various authorities, facts, and state- 
ments of circumstantial evidence, which 
have led the author of these pages to the 
following conclusions : — 

That the strongest suspicions attach 
to the character of Lord Clarendon upon 
the score of rapacious and corrupt prac- 
tices; and that it is evident, that such 
was the general opinion of his contem- 
poraries. 

That his measures against the secta- 
ries were of a most cruel and tyrannical 
nature. 

That various circumstances of differ- 
ent kinds favour very strongly the belief 
of his having been an unconstitutional, 



RESPECTING CLARENDON. 181 

and, in some respects, an unprincipled 
politician, whose religion was also, pro- 
bably, more of a political kind than any 
thing else. 

And lastly, that his character has 
been unjustly favoured by historians 
from various motives — for party pur- 
poses ; from pity for his subsequent 
misfortunes ; from admiration of his ta- 
lents, and especially of his historical 
work ; and from a just dislike and con- 
tempt of his successors. 

Whether the public will agree in these 
conclusions remains to be seen. Per- 
haps the author is too sanguine, but he 
cannot help hoping that those, who 
bring an impartial mind to the consider- 
ation of the subject, will allow that he 
has some ground for his opinions. If 
he has been in error in any of his state- 



182 HISTORICAL INQUIRIES, &C. 

ments, (which he trusts and believes is 
not the case) he hopes in some measure, 
at least, to be forgiven, in consideration 
of his endeavours to be accurate, which 
he can truly say have been unintermit- 
ting. To quote from works of authority ; 
to trouble the world with as little of his 
own reflections as possible, and at the 
same time to redress certain errors in 
history, have been his objects; and if 
he shall be deemed by the intelligent 
part of mankind in any degree to have 
accomplished them, he shall feel himself 
amply rewarded for his labours. 

THE END. 



LONDON: 

1RINTFD BY C. ROWORTH, BELL YAIld, 
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